Chapter Text
As it turns out, Lena is fully capable of warming to small-town life when Kara Danvers is involved.
Over the next few weeks, Lena socializes more than she has in her entire life. She’s introduced to Kara’s friends slowly – first Winn, James, and Brainy, and then later in the week she’s officially introduced to Alex when she runs into the two of them at the grocery store. The older Danvers is friendly and seems genuinely curious about her sister’s new acquaintance, but she definitely gives Lena’s outfit a pointed once-over.
And, Lena can admit, she does stand out. She’s always dressed the way she was expected to – high femme fatale, designer dresses and tailored pants, silk and cashmere and heels no less than 5 inches. It helped her blend in in the world of business, gave her authority in the boardroom, but here it just makes her feel ostentatious. And besides, part of her yearns to exist in something comfortable for the first time since before boarding school.
Besides the Wal-Mart almost an hour away, everyone in town seems to get their clothes from one shop, so after 4 weeks in Midvale Lena finally takes a look.
A tiny bell chimes as she pushes the door, and Lena startles when it seems to collide with something before it can open fully. A rack of sweaters seems to be the culprit, and as the door swings shut behind her, Lena can see why.
It’s the single most crowded shop she’s ever seen. Lena has driven past the storefront, with its slightly crooked sign reading “Dreamy Dress”, a hundred times - and judging by the amount of denim and flannel she sees on a regular basis here, she expected the selection to be sparse. What she finds instead is a store that’s a riot of colour. It more resembles an overfilled vintage store than anything else, with only a small section for practical work-clothes of the type she usually sees Kara in.
While Lena is still processing the surprising interior, a light voice chimes out through the quiet.
“Hiya! Can I help you with anything?”
The girl that ducks out from behind a rack of jeans is younger than Lena was expecting – she can’t be much older than 25, with bright eyes and a sweet smile and a little bit of powdered sugar on her chin. Lena finds herself warming to the girl immediately.
“No, I’m just looking. Thank you, though,” Lena says, and the girl nods, taking another bite of her donut.
“Just let me know!” she says, her mouth still slightly occupied, and Lena chuckles to herself as the girl disappears again.
The girl reminds her, strangely, of Kara.
Thumbing through the cramped rows of clothes, Lena is surprised at the quality of the things on display. Some labels she recognizes, others she doesn’t, and some things have no brand at all – when Lena pulls out an appealing jacket and scarf combination, she can’t find a brand tag anywhere.
“The prices are attached to the sleeves,” the girl says helpfully from somewhere behind Lena, and she turns around to see her folding shirts. She offers a friendly smile, and Lena holds the jacket and scarf up.
“I was actually looking for the brand,” she says, and Nia frowns.
“Oh! Well, that one’s mine.”
Lena blinks, looking at the jacket again. It’s a light brown suede, well-tailored and fitted, with a soft teal scarf attached, and if the girl hadn’t said so, Lena would never have thought it was made by hand.
“You made this?” Lena asks, and the girl nods a little bashfully.
“Yep! I have a little workshop upstairs. Some stuff people donate, some stuff I get from eBay, and I fix it all up and sell it – or, I make it myself. Like that one.” She says it with the air of someone who is proud of their work but doesn’t want to brag, and Lena warms to her even more.
“It’s beautiful. You have a real talent.”
A blush dusts the girl’s cheeks, and she laughs nervously. “Wow, thank you! I’m Nia, by the way.” She holds out a sugar-dusted hand to shake, and Lena takes it gladly.
“Lena.”
“I know!” Nia chirps, before wincing. “I mean, I was told about you.”
“You were?” Lena asks, a sudden nervousness taking over her chest. Does Nia know who she is? Her intent was to lay low here – if the town finds out she’s that Lena Luthor, CEO of a famous company and sister to a notorious murderer, her vacation might as well be over.
“Well, when someone new comes to town, word gets around,” Nia says quickly, and Lena takes a deep, relieved breath. “Kara told me about your car breaking down.”
“Right.” Lena shakes her head with a smile. It seems she’s destined to be known by everyone in town before she’s even met them, and not for the reasons she’s used to. Trust Kara to be the one to spread the news. “Of course she did.”
“Pardon me for saying so, but you don’t look like the kind of woman who needs new clothes,” Nia says, gesturing to Lena’s outfit. “You look amazing.”
“Well, no. But nothing I own is really appropriate. I discovered when I moved here that Boardroom Chic isn’t conducive to blending in in a small town.”
“That’s fair,” Nia says, nodding thoughtfully. “So, you’re looking for something more casual?”
“More comfortable, really,” Lena says, shrugging. “I can’t keep walking down my gravel driveway in stilettos.”
Nia laughs, and leads Lena towards a hidden corner of the shop. “This is where I keep most of my original pieces. They might be more to your tastes?”
The clothes on display are, amazingly, exactly what Lena is looking for. They’re understated but classy, simple cuts and colours in soft fabrics with nice accent pieces. Each of them looks good enough to be in a high-end store, but as she sorts through, most of them are priced like bargain sales.
Examining the immaculate stitching on a plain cotton blouse, Lena speaks up before Nia can disappear into the racks again. “These are incredibly low prices, Nia. You could make real money selling this stuff online, making a brand.”
Nia lets out a nervous guffaw, blushing and covering her mouth. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”
“I do,” Lena insists, holding up a jacket. “I don’t mean to brag, but I wear very expensive clothes, and this is high quality work.”
Nia turns fuchsia, and Lena decides to lay off before the poor girl faints.
“I’ll pay you double for all of this,” she says decisively, grabbing items and starting to piece together her new wardrobe. “Do you have a fitting room?”
“What?” Nia asks, looking shell-shocked. “Oh, gosh, no. I can’t let you do that.”
“I insist, Nia. I’m still paying you less than what it’s worth.”
It takes some persuasion, but Nia finally lets Lena pay and leave the store with a new collection of jeans, flat-soled leather boots, and over half of her stock of original items, along with a few sundresses and some tank tops for layering. She practically has to run the transaction through herself, but in the end she leaves with about 10 shopping bags and a very grateful Nia waving her out.
Nia also insisted Lena buy some shorts and sandals for the hot weather, not that she ever intends on wearing them.
She gets the chance to take her new clothes for a test run two nights later, when she’s driving back from the gas station and she sees Kara’s distinctive truck parked outside the bar again. If it weren’t for the fact that hanging out at the bar seems to be one of the only social activities in this town, Lena might think Kara had some kind of problem – but it seems like every other car in town is there, too, so Lena pulls in and finds a parking spot at the back.
It’s almost alarming, the way the smell of this bar is becoming familiar. It’s rowdier than usual, being a Friday night, and it takes Lena a moment to locate Kara, but soon enough she spots that blue hat and blonde ponytail at the loudest table in the place. Lena can see Winn and James, Brainy, Lucy, Alex, and a tall, barrel-chested man she’s never seen before gathered around Kara and another man, one she’s heard being called ‘Oliver’ at the coffee shop. They’re locked in an intense arm-wrestling match, both of their biceps shaking as they strain, and the group around them is shouting so loud that it might as well be a championship hockey game.
“Give ‘er, Kara!” Alex is yelling, taking a long pull from her beer bottle.
“Statistically speaking, there’s very little chance she’s going to beat Queen,” Brainy says to James, but the taller man just claps him on the shoulder.
“You’re underestimating our girl, here!”
Kara, for her part, seems to be completely ignoring the conversation. Her face is set in grim determination, every vein in her arm popping as she fights to keep it off the table. She exudes quiet confidence, and Lena wouldn’t believe it was possible for her to win against the brute across from her but she certainly seems to be gaining the upper hand. His arm is bending further back by the second, his face red and sweaty, and a few seconds later Kara slams it onto the table so voraciously that Lena is afraid the beers scattered across it are going to end up on the carpet.
Oliver smacks at the table with an open palm, almost spilling the drinks on it yet again, and a worried-looking Alex grabs at the bottles to move them out of the way.
“Pump the brakes there, Ollie, we’re all friends here,” Kara says, holding her hands up in a peaceful gesture. But Oliver doesn’t respond well. He stands up, towering over the table and elbowing Winn out of the way, and Kara visibly responds to the perceived threat.
“I want a rematch, Danvers. You had your arm set wrong, you fuckin’ cheater,” Oliver says, his voice sounding intentionally gravelly. But Kara stays calm, slowly standing up and crossing her arms. Even with the significant height difference, she can see Oliver visibly resist taking a step back at the palpable protective energy Kara gives off.
“Just admit you lost, bud,” Kara says, a warning in her tone. But Oliver seems to have a need to assert his masculinity after Kara kicked his ass, and he hits the table again.
“I don’t lose! I work out twice a day, I bench 260, I’m a brick shithouse, you didn’t beat me!” He says loudly, and thankfully, it seems like someone at the table has finally chosen this moment to intervene. The man Lena doesn’t know stands, revealing that he’s actually taller than Oliver, and talks to him in a low, soothing baritone.
“You’re gonna want to back off, son.”
The man’s presence seems to calm Oliver, but he still points aggressively at Kara.
“You’ve got the doc on your side this time, but I want a rematch,” he says, at a normal volume this time but still visibly angry. Kara waves him off, looking less protective now and more amused at his hypermasculine antics.
“Alright, if you wanna blow smoke, go have a dart.”
Oliver responds by hitting the bowl of pretzels off the table, sending them scattering across the floor, and storms away while Kara’s friends yell obscenities at him.
Watching Kara flex and compete had been one thing. It was attractive, and Lena couldn’t take her eyes away from those shoulders, but she could handle it. But watching Kara win? Watching her take down a man almost twice her size and barely break a sweat?
Lena, still trying to compute the situation beyond “Kara Danvers is very strong and could probably bench press my whole body”, stands in the doorway and wonders, not for the first time, if perhaps they speak an entirely different language in this town, because she only understood about half of the words that were exchanged.
Even so, her body makes its opinion known with a low, deep throb, and Lena is genuinely about to turn on her heel and go home to take care of it when Kara spots her.
“Lena!”
Doing her best not to wince, Lena makes her way over to the table. Everyone at it gives a friendly cheer when she pulls up a chair, which makes her feel warm in a different way.
“Here again, I see,” she says to Kara as she settles into a wooden chair with uneven legs. It tips a little every time she shifts, and Kara chuckles at Lena’s annoyance over it.
“Yeah, but I’m not drinking tonight. It’s my turn to DD.”
The table gives a genial yell at that, and Lena finds herself more intrigued than ever by Kara Danvers. Apparently she’s kind, funny, and responsible.
Fantastic.
While Alex and James set up a game of pool and Winn and Lucy leave to watch, Lena listens idly and tries to participate in the conversation without drifting into visions of Kara’s arms flexing. Kara seems delighted that she’s met Nia, and compliments her on her new outfit – jeans and a green shirt that Nia said would bring out her eyes.
“You look amazing. Nia knows what she’s doing,” Kara says, giving Lena an appraising once-over that leaves her even more distracted than before.
“So, I didn’t look good before?” Lena teases, trying to deflect the praise, but Kara answers with brutal honesty.
“You didn’t look comfortable, that’s all.”
Thankfully, Lena is saved from having to answer that confusing reply. A cheer goes up by the pool table as Alex presumably takes the lead, and Kara suddenly seems to remember that there’s someone at the table that Lena hasn’t met.
“Oh! Lena, this is J’onn. He’s our doctor. Once of them, anyways,” Kara says, and Lena holds out her hand to shake. J’onn’s hand is gigantic, and there’s something reassuring about his smile.
“With the way you calmed that situation down, I would have thought you were a Sherriff,” Lena says with a smile, and J’onn laughs, deep and friendly.
“I just like to stop the injuries before I have to treat them. Not much happens up here, anyways. Just some drunk and disorderly's and the occasional drunk driver. A donnybrook every so often.”
“A what?” Lena asks, but there’s another ruckus at the pool table that distracts from her question being answered. It looks like Alex has won, and Lena is genuinely shocked to see Winn plant a big, definitely not friendly kiss on James’ cheek as a consolation.
While J’onn goes over to congratulate Alex, Kara nudges her with an elbow.
“Never seen a couple before?” Kara says slyly, nodding at James and Winn, who are now wrapped in a hug. How on earth she didn’t notice the fact that they’re clearly a couple before is beyond her.
Lena startles at the nudge, blushing hotly. “No, I – I was just surprised.”
“About?”
“Well…don’t they get harassed, in a place like this?” Lena asks hesitantly, lowering her voice. Kara shakes her head.
“Nah. Everyone loves them together. They get invited to every potluck, and Winn is one of the best teachers at the school. Plus, he’s the only IT guy in town. Probably has a lot to do with the fact that he’s one of the only people here that can make heads or tails of a computer, but still.”
Lena smiles, nodding. The idea of a town this size actually being accepting of difference seems impossible, but here she is, sitting in a small town bar with a group that’s more racially and sexually diverse than her boardroom at L-Corp.
“So, people really accept them?” she asks, watching as James puts a firm hand on Winn’s back.
“They do. There are some idiots, of course, but not every small town has a backwards mentality,” Kara says, and Lena feels a little guilty for jumping to conclusions.
“You can’t blame me for assuming.”
“No, I can’t,” Kara agrees fairly. “But I wouldn’t live here if it was like that. And besides, it’s not just them. We have a lot of LGBT people here. Like, you know Alex is gay, right?“
Lena chuckles and looks over at Alex, who is currently celebrating her victory with two shots of tequila. “Well, yes, I assumed, considering she has a crush on Dr. Olsen. But I…I don’t know, I suppose I didn’t think there could be more than one in a town like this.”
“Well, it runs in the family,” Kara says, just a bit too casually. She’s got an arm over the back of the chair next to her, leaning back with total confidence, and the fact that Lena now knows without a doubt that she’s both painfully attractive and definitely gay is doing things to her psyche.
“…you?” Lena asks, a definite croak in her voice. She clears her throat, and Kara flashes a knee-weakening grin.
“You didn’t guess?”
Lena lets out a long breath, wringing her hands. “I…well, I suspected. But I didn’t think…”
“That I’d be open about it?” Kara finishes, and Lena inclines her head in response.
“More or less.”
“Well, I am,” Kara says easily, but her voice turns serious and quiet as she turns to Lena with a somber expression.
“Are you?”
Lena laughs nervously, tucking her hair behind an ear. Kara’s intensity is sudden, and her chest feels tight with the impending reveal. “I would have thought you’d have googled me by now.”
It is genuinely surprising to her that, after more than a month in this town, nobody has so much as looked her up on social media. She’s not even hard to find – the media had a field day after Lex’s arrest, and Sam insists on a certain amount of activity on the internet to convince people she isn’t her brother. All Kara would have to do is google her name and she’d find everything – her job, her family, her last 3 public romantic entanglements, the last of which ended catastrophically when she found out about Veronica’s clandestine fight club operation.
“I wanted to get to know you the old-fashioned way,” Kara grins, giving her a gentle push on the shoulder. “Besides, I’ve never googled anyone I know. Have you?”
Clearing her throat, Lena switches to the easier part of that statement. “Well, yes. I am. Open, that is. To...that. I wasn’t, for a long time, but…I thought that maybe it was about time I did one thing for myself.”
“Do you not do things for yourself?”
Lena snorts. “I was raised to believe I was selfish if I so much as spent an hour not doing something to better myself. Studying, inventing, helping my brother. Doing things just for myself is…not in my nature.”
Kara looks at her thoughtfully. There’s something deep in her eyes, something appraising, and Lena does her best to measure up.
“So, then, what really brings you here?” Kara finally asks, and Lena sighs. It’s a question she still asks herself on a daily basis, and for the first time, she admits to someone besides Sam and Jack why she actually came here.
“I suppose I’m trying to change that. Trying to…learn to relax,” Lena says, shrugging self-deprecatingly. “Self-care, and all that garbage.”
Kara nods, and Lena is surprised at how immediately she seems to understand.
“Well, let me help you.”
“How?” Lena asks, arching a brow. Kara just smiles.
“Are you free tomorrow night?”
“When you asked if I was free, I didn’t think that driving out to the middle of nowhere was on the agenda.”
Lena’s voice is shaky, not out of nerves, but because the road (if you could call it that – it’s really more of a two-wheel dirt path through the woods) is absurdly bumpy. If anyone else but Kara had told Lena to meet her at the edge of town and then instructed her to park her car and get into the truck to drive into the forest, she would have pointed her taser at them, but with Kara she didn’t even think twice.
That fact should probably be alarming in itself.
“Trust me, it’s worth it,” Kara assures her with complete confidence. She’s leaned back comfortably in the driver’s seat, One hand on the wheel and the other on the gear shift, and the bumps in the road don’t seem to phase her at all – her ponytail bounces cheerfully with every one. She catches Lena’s eye and flashes her a grin, and Lena quickly averts her gaze to look out the window.
“Do you listen to anything but country music?” Lena asks, trying to live in a world where she wasn’t just caught staring. “I know we’re rural up here, but it seems a little excessive.”
“I like classic rock, too,” Kara says easily, turning the volume down. “And I had a brief pop-punk phase when I went to university. A lot of studying to Blink-182.”
Lena frowns, looking over at Kara again.
“You went to university?”
“You sound surprised,” Kara says with a knowing grin.
“Well, I – it’s just that, you’re a mechanic. It doesn’t require a university degree. Where did you go? What did you study?” Lena asks, still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that Kara is university educated.
“English, at Queens. And I got a Masters in Journalism from Western.”
Lena blinks silently for a moment. She herself went to school outside the country, attending boarding school in Ireland and getting her degrees from international schools like MIT and Cambridge, but even she knows that those two schools are fairly prestigious here.
“You have a Masters?” she finally asks, but before Kara can answer the probably offensive incredulity in Lena’s question, the truck emerges from the shaded woods and into the late day sunlight.
“We’re here!”
Here turns out to be an open, grassy field on the crest of a gentle slope with a lone, towering maple tree in the centre. Lena can see some kind of wood structure in the branches, and Kara backs the truck in directly underneath it, grinning as she cuts the engine.
“Welcome to the Danvers Clubhouse.”
"Clubhouse?" Lena asks, but Kara has already opened the door.
“Alex and I built this when we were kids,” Kara explains, climbing out of the truck and pointing at the platform and small shack-like walls above them. “We used to dirtbike here. It’s always been my favourite place in town. Not many other people know where it is, so I come here to think. Or calm down.”
“It’s beautiful,” Lena says, as she jumps down from the tall truck seat onto the grass. And, it is – not the structure itself, necessarily, which has a child’s earnest artistic vision about it, but the surrounding vista is strangely breathtaking. The hill starts to slope down just past the tree, so it opens up the sprawling, hilly landscape beyond. It’s green as far as the eye can see, grass and cornfields and forest until the hills meet the blue sky, and the afternoon sun is going down directly in front of them.
“Yeah. Alex and I used to try to sleep here, but Eliza always came out and made us come home,” Kara says, looking up at the tree fondly.
“Is that your mother?” Lena asks. She knows Kara is adopted, but she knows so little about both Kara’s biological and adoptive families, and she can’t help but be curious.
Kara hesitates for only a moment, but Lena notices. There’s something in the question that gave Kara pause. Lena senses that Kara is gauging the opportunity to talk about her family, but it seems like she isn’t quite ready yet.
“Yeah, it is,” she replies simply, and the answer is enough - Kara, unlike Lena, loves her adoptive mother. Lena nods, deciding not to pursue it, and Kara seems deeply relieved.
“Anyways, it’s the best place in town to relax,” Kara continues, fishing around behind the tree and coming out holding a long stick.
“In the middle of a field?” Lena asks, skeptical, while Kara determinedly uses the stick to hook a weathered-looking rope ladder and swing it down.
“Yeah! Come on,” Kara says, holding out a hand with a bright, expectant look on her face, and with only a bit of hesitation Lena takes it.
Climbing the swinging, rickety rope ladder is an experience, and not for the first time Lena is grateful that Nia nudged her into buying flat-soled boots. When she finally she reaches the top with Kara’s help, the treehouse itself isn’t much better. It creaks worryingly when she takes a step, but Kara doesn’t seem to notice, too wrapped up in childlike excitement.
“James made us that table out of milk crates,” Kara is saying, pointing at the contraption in the corner of the sheltered part of the treehouse. “We would bring backpacks full of food out here and pretend we were stuck in the wilderness. Over there we’d pile blankets into a nest, and Winn would read to us.”
“Is that why he became a teacher?” Lena asks, imagining a young Winn dramatically reading Robinson Crusoe in a tiny and authoritative voice to his captive audience. The idea makes her smile.
“I never thought of it like that,” Kara says, thoughtfully. “Maybe it is.”
Kara leans against a branch, crossing her legs at the ankle, and the movement reveals something behind her.
“Kara, why are some of the branches gone?”
Kara twists around to see what Lena is pointing at, and waves off Lena’s question easily. “We used to have a swing on that branch, but then it broke. And that one was our old ladder, but it broke too.”
“Maybe that should have been a warning sign,” Lena mutters, feeling the wood move with every step, but Kara just pulls her by the hand towards the edge of the platform.
“You worry too much. Come, sit.”
It is a very pretty view, Lena can admit. The extra height means they can see more, and the shade of the thick leaves keeps them out of the hot sun. Lena can see names carved into the solid bark of the tree trunk nearby – Kara and Alex, scratched in close together, alongside a blocky James and a neat, almost cursive Winn. Lucy is written from top to bottom, like an acronym, and beside it is Brainy, written in precise capital letters.
Underneath the other names, there’s a spot where a name has clearly been scratched out. It’s rough and imprecise, as if several hands were hacking at it at once, and underneath it in large, clear letters, surrounded by a deeply-carved heart, is Nia.
Lena logs that information away, but there isn’t much time to dwell on it. A gentle breeze blows through the field and Lena can feel the whole structure shift.
“I don’t exactly feel safe up here,” Lena says, squeezing Kara’s hand, and Kara laughs easily.
“Okay, come on. I’ve got beer in the truck.”
The sun is starting to set when Kara opens the tailgate and hauls a cooler onto it, pulling it open and gesturing Lena over. “I have Labatt and Canadian.”
“Are those…my only options?” Lena says, arching a brow, and Kara snorts.
“Oh, don’t be a snob. Here.”
Kara cracks open a beer and hands it to her, grabbing one for herself and hopping up to sit on the tailgate. She pats the space next to her, and with a sigh Lena follows her.
“I’ve always loved watching the sunset from here,” Kara says, taking a sip. “It feels like I’m the only person on earth.”
“Except me,” Lena says absently, busy watching the way Kara’s lips move around the mouth of the bottle. Kara laughs.
“Except you. I just thought you might like it here, Miss I-Don’t-Relax.”
“I can – I know how to – okay, you know what, shut up,” Lena huffs, fighting a blush. Kara, to her credit, does shut up, taking a long swig of beer instead. They take in the sunset in comfortable quiet, Kara’s dangling legs swinging back and forth. The whole field and the forest beyond are bathed in an orange glow, the sun sinking behind the horizon and leaving in its wake a sky full of the brightest stars Lena has ever seen. They almost seem to shimmer, the Milky Way visible in real life for the first time.
“Wow,” she breathes quietly, as Kara lights a citronella candle to keep the worst of the bugs away. “I’ve never seen stars like this. And I studied astrophysics.”
“They come out real bright when there’s no streetlamps. I thought you studied engineering?” Kara asks, frowning in confusion. Lena nods, still looking up.
“I have 5 degrees.”
There’s a pause, and Lena finally pulls her eyes away from the stars to see Kara staring at her like she has 3 heads.
“In what?” Kara finally asks, incredulous, and Lena clears her throat self-consciously.
“Mechanical engineering, astrophysics, biochemistry, mathematics, and business,” She rattles off, and Kara stares at her again. Lena shifts, tearing nervously at the label of her bottle. Now is the time where people usually get uncomfortable. Every date she’s ever been on has had this moment, where they realize who she is and what she does, and the reaction is usually either a sudden lack of interest or an onslaught of bragging from the other party in an attempt to out-do her.
But Kara just shakes her head, the wheels clearly turning in her brain.
“…how old are you?”
Lena barks out a laugh. “How old do you think I am?”
“Well I assumed you were my age, but with that much education you must be, like…a vampire or something,” Kara says, her beer bottle hanging forgotten in her loose fingers.
Lena shakes her head, fighting a blush. “I’m 31.”
“You’re a year younger than me and you have 5 degrees?” Kara says, whistling long and low. “That is…seriously impressive. How did you manage that?”
Lena lets out a relieved breath. Kara doesn’t seem intimidated, not does she start bringing up her own achievements in a self-conscious word vomit. She just seems impressed, and interested. It’s…entirely disarming.
“I started my undergrad when I was 16. I finished my last degree when I was 25, and I worked for a biomedical startup with my best friends, and then…um.”
Lena hesitates, her beer label now completely shredded. She trusts Kara, more quickly and completely than probably anyone else she’s ever met, but even so she’s reticent to pull the 'I’m that Lena Luthor' card. Even if it’s going to burst at the end of the summer, she wants to preserve this little bubble of normalcy she’s found.
“And then I went into business,” she finishes vaguely. “And now I’m…tired.”
“I don’t blame you. Your life sounds exhausting.”
Kara says it with genuine concern, and Lena finds herself opening up despite her usual instincts. “Nobody’s ever put it that bluntly before. But…yes, it is.”
“I mean, I couldn’t do what you do. Science, and business. I always wanted to go part-time at the shop and restart the town newspaper, but there isn’t really enough funding to get it out of the grave. And besides, Alex needs a lot of help, since we’re the only shop in town.”
They sit in silence for a few moments, just taking in the beautiful view. There are crickets singing, and branches rustling in the breeze, and some kind of chirping animal in the long grass, and in the distance she can hear a long, mournful howl. The smell of citronella and fresh night air is more revitalizing than a cup of morning coffee.
It’s beautiful, and worth seeing. But her mind can’t stop focusing on what Kara told her. Finally, quietly, she speaks up.
“Kara, can I just ask…what are you doing here?”
Kara shrugs, taking a sip of beer. “Eliza asks me that too, sometimes. Always tells me I could do bigger and better things. My cousin went to Toronto to be a journalist, and he likes it, but it’s just…not for me.”
“You could do bigger things. There are dozens of places where you could put your degrees to use,” Lena says, but Kara shrugs again.
“I know. But…sometimes life isn’t about bigger and better things. Sometimes it’s just about being happy. And this place…makes me happy.”
Lena has to take a moment to consider that. Putting happiness, genuine happiness, above ambition or responsibility has never been an option for her. The Luthors drilled a sense of duty into her from the day she was adopted, a duty to make the family look good, and she’s taken it like a heavy mantle. But Kara just…chose happiness. And freedom.
“I like it here,” Kara continues. “I love the people, I love being away from the city. It’s so loud and chaotic there, and everyone is only looking out for themselves.”
Lena nods. She can’t argue the point. It’s part of why she left, after all.
“Besides, Alex needed help with the shop,” Kara finishes. Lena, still in awe of the fact that Kara just chose not to rise up the ladder even though she’s clearly so intelligent, can’t help but ask.
“It’s just hard to believe you’d waste your Journalism degree on being a mechanic.”
Immediately, she winces. She knows exactly how condescending she just sounded. She could hear Lillian in her words, and it tastes like poison.
“I’m so sorry, Kara,” she says immediately, her chest seizing up. “I didn’t mean – you’re not wasting anything. I didn’t mean for it to come out that way –“
“It’s okay,” Kara reassures her, putting a hand on her thigh, but Lena shakes her head, guilt and shame crashing through her chest like a tidal wave.
“No, I sounded like my mother. I’m so sorry. You’re…you’re wonderful, and you don’t deserve me acting like an ass.” Lena is fully ready to wallow in self-deprecation, but Kara doesn’t let her. She puts a hand on her shoulder and shakes it gently until Lena makes eye contact.
“Lena, honestly. It’s okay. I know it seems unconventional, but…I’m just good with cars. I wish I could do more writing, sure – but for now, I’m happy. And that’s enough for me.”
Lena relaxes slightly, and in lieu of saying something even more stupid, she finishes her slightly warm beer off with a wince at the bitter flavour. Kara, bless her soul, changes the subject.
“Come on, I’ve got some blankets in the truck. We can lay them out and you can tell me more about celestial mechanics.”
“How do you know what celestial mechanics are?” Lena blurts as Kara shoves her hand through a tiny hatch in the back window and pulls out a pile of fabric. Kara winks, laying them out over the hard plastic of the truck bed.
“I took an Astronomy elective. You should challenge your misconceptions, Miss Luthor.”
For a long time, that title – Miss Luthor – has made Lena everything from uncomfortable to anxious. It’s come from governesses, strict teachers, business partners, and underlings. It’s been said with anger, hatred, condescension, and with anxious awe. But coming from Kara, with all its usual strings and undercurrents removed, it feels different.
It doesn’t bother her at all.
Together they settle on their backs, a blanket pulled up over their legs, and look at the sky. Kara points out constellations, telling Lena the childish myths and stories she had never heard before despite her astrophysics degree, and in return Lena relays the scientific names of the brightest ones, taking advantage of actually being able to see them all.
She falls asleep to Kara’s voice, low and soothing, telling her the story of Perseus and Andromeda, and she sleeps deeper than she has in months.
Unfortunately, she wakes up in a much less pleasant way – stiff, damp, and itchy.
The sky is light but the sun hasn’t quite risen yet, a light mist hovering over the long grass around the truck and clinging to the blades and making them glisten. But it also clings to her own clothes and skin, and she shivers absently as she stretches her numb arm out and flexes her cold fingers.
Beside her, Kara stirs, and there’s a cute frown on her face when she opens her eyes.
“Shit,” Kara says, blinking rapidly and sitting up. “Shit, I didn’t mean to fall asleep. You must be freezing. Come on, I’ll drive you home.”
”It’s f-fine,” Lena insists through chattering teeth, but Kara bundles get up into the cab of the truck anyways.
Kara drops her off at her door, waving as she backs down the driveway to get to work, and Lena reflects on the night. She fixes herself a cup of coffee and a hot water bottle, scratching at one of what feels like 30 bug bites on every exposed part of her body, but even that doesn’t dampen her mood. Despite the discomfort, the night actually felt strangely worth it.
Three days later, when Lena is curled up in bed with the worst cold she’s had since college, she re-evaluates her initial assessment.
“Stupid outdoors,” Lena grumbles raspily, blowing her nose for the thousandth time. “Stupid treehouse, stupid cold –“
She’s congested and sore and grumpy, but even so, she knows she’d probably do it all again.
She’s interrupted from her misery by something vibrating under her pillow. Fishing around for the source, she pulls out her phone, where Jack’s contact photo is flashing with an incoming call. Pressing the talk button, she flops back onto the pillows again.
“What,” she groans, and Jack laughs on the other end.
“Jesus, darling, you sound like you went on a cigar binge. Are you alive?”
“I’m sick,” Lena mutters, sniffling miserably. “Leave me alone.”
“You’re sick?” Sam’s voice echoes in the distance, and Lena sighs. Never one without the other. “You never get sick. How did you get sick?”
“Fell asleep outside,” Lena says into her pillow, but even muffled, they pick up on it.
“How the hell did you manage that?” Sam asks, and Lena sighs.
“I was…stargazing. With Kara.”
“Who the fuck is Kara?” Jack says, and Lena sincerely wishes he was here, specifically so she could punch him.
“The mechanic!” Sam hisses, and Jack seems to understand.
“Oh! Wait. Did you -?!” Jack exclaims, and Lena can hear Sam gasp.
“Lena!” Sam yells, but before they can build up a head of steam, Lena cuts them off.”
“We didn’t have sex!”
There’s a moment of silence so profound that Lena is surprised crickets haven’t manifested just to drive it home.
“Okay, you lost me,” Sam says, and Lena sighs heavily.
“We went stargazing, and we fell asleep in the bed of her truck.”
“So, let me get this straight,” Jack says slowly, and Lena struggles not to cough obnoxiously. “You slept together without sleeping together? Outside? And you ended up sick? I think you’re doing this wrong, honey.”
“You must really be hung up on this girl,” Sam says, sounding a little too suspicious for Lena’s liking.
“Shut up,” Lena groans, the sick headache she’s had all morning building ever higher with every word.
“I’m just speaking the truth! She must be really hot. Send me a picture,” Sam insists, and in her mind’s eye she can just see Sam pulling out her phone in anticipation.
“I don’t have a picture.”
“Okay, link her Instagram or something.”
“She doesn’t have one,” Lena says, and Jack makes an indignant noise.
“What?”
“Nobody here does!” Lena protests, and Jack’s horror only grows.
“What kind of hellish town did you move to?” he asks, and Lena rolls over, feeling strangely defensive.
“I actually sort of like it. Nobody is trying to make other people feel bad about their lives by posting half-lies on social media. Instead, they lie in person. It’s refreshing,” she says, taking a sip of her lukewarm tea and making a face. She swings her legs over the side of the bed and tucks the phone against her ear, padding downstairs to make another cup.
Sam snorts. “Are you okay, Lena? Did you drink the hoser kool-aid up there?”
“I didn’t drink anything,” Lena insists, filling the kettle. “It’s just a nice vacation. Besides, you made me come up here!”
“As long as you don’t get all redneck indoctrinated and abandon us,” Jack says, and Lena snorts. As if she’d ever abandon L-Corp. She put her whole soul into reviving the company, and she won’t leave just because she’s having a relaxing break.
“Never. I’ll be back soon.”
Just as the kettle whistles the doorbell chimes loudly, ringing through the house, and Lena frowns in the direction of the front door.
“I have to go, guys. I’ll call you later this week,” she says, and she can hear Jack and Sam protesting, but she hangs the phone up anyways, dropping it on the counter to answer the door. The last person she expects to see when it opens is Lucy, the owner of the local restaurant, but she’s there nonetheless.
“Special delivery,” the shorter woman says cheerfully, holding out a plastic tub of what looks like soup.
Lena blinks, taking the tub and trying to process what’s happening right now. She’s never said more than 5 words to Lucy, only really encountering her when she grabs a quick dinner or when Lucy is at the bar with everyone else, and there’s no fathomable reason she should be here right now.
The tub is still hot, and the shock of it helps her remember where she is.
“Lucy!” she says, clearing her throat of the sick rasp. “What are you doing here?”
“Kara had to work, but she asked if I could bring you some soup,” Lucy replies easily, pointing at the container.
“Kara’s working? Isn’t she sick too?” Lena asks, frowning and setting the tub down on the hall table next to her.
“She is, but she hates taking days off.”
Lena sighs. That sounds like Kara, all right. The whole time Lena has been here, she’s never known a day that Kara wasn’t at the shop.
“Anyways, enjoy it! House-made matza ball. It’s actually Eliza’s recipe,” Lucy explains. Lena peers down at the soup, seeing the floating dumplings she hadn’t noticed before.
“Kara’s mother?” Lena asks, and Lucy nods.
“She lets me sell it in exchange for free catering on high holy days.”
The fact that Kara’s family is Jewish is another thing that Lena feels like she should know, and in thinking that, she realizes that she really doesn’t know much about the woman she spends a fair amount of time thinking about. Kara likes to ask her questions about herself, but besides that initial coffee after Kara changed her tire, she hasn’t had much opportunity. Even last night, it was mostly Kara asking the questions.
Lena makes a mental note: pay more attention.
“Well, um. Tell her I said thank you,” Lena says, stifling a cough in her elbow, and Lucy moves back a few steps with an alarmed look.
“Can’t you tell her yourself?”
“I…don’t have her number,” Lena admits haltingly.
Lucy looks at her blankly for a second, until she bursts out into loud, raucous laughter. She bends almost double, the mirth apparently too much for her, and Lena has to wait a minute before Lucy is quiet enough to talk to again.
“What’s so funny?”
Lucy just wipes her eyes, shaking her head. “Of course you don’t have her number. You’re all the damn same.”
“Who’s all the same?” Lena asks, but Lucy is already waving, on her way to her car. Before she makes it down, though, she stops on the stairs and looks at Lena thoughtfully.
“You know, I’ve never seen Kara like this before,” Lucy says, and Lena frowns.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve seen her flirt, and I’ve seen her with girls who are just passing through,” Lucy clarifies. “This is different. It’s just…it’s interesting, that’s all.”
With that cryptic message Lucy leaves, and Lena closes the door feeling like someone just yanked the floor out from under her.
And, the soup is delicious.
Lena’s cold is thankfully gone by the end of the week. She spends most of her recovery time wanting to message Kara and thank her for the delicious soup, but unfortunately, Lucy's laughter was warranted. It's absurd that after two months of knowing her, Lena still doesn’t have her number.
Luckily, she runs into the object of her thoughts the first time she ventures out of her plague-ridden house. There’s a tap on her shoulder when she’s in line at the grocery store, excited to eat something besides soup and Powerade, and she turns around to see a grinning Kara, covered head-to-toe in green stains and tiny bits of grass.
“Hey! Feeling any better?” Kara says cheerfully, her own cold seemingly gone. Lena relaxes immediately, and tries not to think about what it means that Kara’s presence has started to coincide with a feeling of absolute safety.
“I am, actually,” Lena replies, shifting her shopping basket to the other arm. “I’ve been meaning to thank you for the soup. I’ve never had matza ball before.”
Kara leans close, as if she’s about to share a secret. “Eliza always says it’s our Jewish penicillin.”
Lena snorts, and Kara seems pleased with herself as they both move up a spot in line.
“So, how exactly did…this happen?” Lena says, gesturing at Kara’s whole body. Kara looks down at herself, grinning.
“I actually have the day off, so I decided I’d mow my lawn. And then I mowed my neighbor’s lawn, and then the girl across the street was having trouble with her mower, so I helped her out. And in the process, the clipping bag sort of…exploded.”
Lena laughs, picturing Kara being showered in grass and dirt, smiling the whole way. It’s extremely in-character for the blonde, as is mowing her neighbor’s lawn just because she felt like it.
“A perfectly reasonable explanation.”
“Thank you!” Kara says brightly, either ignoring or entirely missing the sarcasm. “What are you up to today?”
“Well…this, actually,” Lena says, pointing at her basket.
“Wanna get some ice cream? It’s the best in town. Probably the best in the country,” Kara says, starting to load her things onto the conveyor. “It’s such a nice day for it.”
“You want to get ice cream all covered in grass clippings?” Lena says, raising a brow.
Kara looks down at herself again, as if she’d forgotten that every piece of clothing she’s wearing is stained green. “Oh. Right. Well, how about I go change, and you take your groceries home, and we meet up here?”
20 minutes later she pulls in next to Kara, now dressed in much cleaner jeans and an oversized t-shirt with her ever-present hat perched over her ponytail, and accepts that she’ll never be able to say no to this woman.
“So, where is this amazing ice cream?” Lena asks, as Kara leads her down towards the main street. “Is there some company I don’t know about that makes it specifically for tiny towns in rural Ontario?”
Kara shakes her head. “No, it’s homemade! M’gann runs this little stand during the summer. She makes it herself, but she’s not always here, so you pretty much have to just go there and hope.”
“She just…works whenever she wants to?” Lena asks skeptically, as Kara leads her down a grassy slope beside the laundromat. It leads them to a paved path that runs along the river, and suddenly the relative noise of Main Street is cut off, leaving just the calming sounds of birds and the running water.
It seems, suddenly, very romantic.
“Pretty much. She also runs this place, and owns the apartments above it, so she keeps herself busy,” Kara says, pointing at the laundromat beside them and seeming not to notice the way Lena has stiffened slightly. “Oh, she’s here! Yes!”
Kara wasn’t exaggerating when she called it a little stand. It’s essentially a pop-up tent with an ice cream freezer underneath it, set up on the section of paved path that runs between the back door of the laundromat and the general store beside it. There are two picnic tables set up on the grassy area close to the river, and one of them is already occupied.
“Brainy! Nia! What are you doing here?” Kara calls, waving, and both of the people in question suddenly sit stiffly upright.
Lena can relate. Kara, however, seems strangely delighted by the pair’s presence. She’s smiling ear-to-ear, and she shoots Nia a wink that makes her blush terribly.
“We are….just having some ice cream. Casually,” Brainy says, a bit too loudly, and Nia’s blush fades into a sad, disappointed sort of look. And suddenly, Lena understands.
“Right. Casually,” Nia says, looking down at her mostly-empty cup. “I should be getting back to work, actually. Thanks for the ice cream.”
She throws her cup in a nearby garbage can, and leaves with a quick wave at both of them. Brainy, Lena notices, looks after her with a sort of longing that she finds far too relatable.
“They’ve been dancing around each other for forever,” Kara says quietly in Lena’s ear, as Brainy waves his goodbye and leaves. “I keep telling Brainy to just ask her out already, but he’s too nervous.”
“Why?” Lena asks. “They’d be sweet together.”
“I know!” Kara says, throwing her hands up. “But he’s worried she won’t want to be seen with him. He’s sort of self-conscious about his autism. I’ve told him time and time again that Nia likes him the way he is, but he doesn’t believe me. Hence that whole…debacle.”
Lena nods, the situation making increasingly more sense.
“I had no idea this town was so full of secret relationships,” Lena says, and she has to turn her full attention to the ice cream tubs when Kara winks at her.
“We’re surprisingly romantic, Lena.”
Don’t blush. Don’t blush. Don’t fucking blush.
Thankfully, they’re interrupted by the woman under the tent, who waves Kara over enthusiastically. Her curly hair is loose and free, and she looks completely in her element lounging in the tent on a sunny day.
“Hey, Kara! I was just thinking I haven’t seen enough of you this summer,” M’gann says, and Lena is struck by her stunning smile. This town seems to have an unnatural ratio of beautiful people, and Lena wonders if perhaps there’s something in the water up here.
“I know, I know. I’ve been working!” Kara says, raising her hands in surrender.
“You work too much,” M’gann scolds, and Lena has to agree. “Who’s your pretty friend?”
“This is Lena. She’s here for the summer,” Kara says, slinging a casual arm over Lena’s shoulders that threatens to make her spontaneously combust. M’gann nods, seeming to accept that at face value. Lena shakes the hand M’gann holds out, and tries to look as friendly as she can when all she’s thinking about is that Kara’s hand is on her upper arm.
“Look out for this one,” M’gann warns playfully, moving back behind the freezer and pointing at Kara. “She’s a heartbreaker.”
“I am not!” Kara protests, her arm sliding off Lena’s shoulder to gesture. Lena relaxes, but part of her is disappointed.
“Sure, sure. You want your regular?”
“You know it. What are you having, Lena?” Kara asks. Lena, having not been paying any actual attention to the ice cream until right now, is suddenly overwhelmed with choice.
The flavours aren’t what she was expecting. Instead of chocolate or strawberry, there’s things like café du leche, mango pineapple, earl grey, and something called ‘cereal milk’. M’gann starts scooping one of each flavour onto a towering waffle cone for Kara, and Lena finally decides on her own – in the front corner is a tub labelled ‘specialty’, and it’s a riot of rainbow swirls.
“I’ll take that one,” She says, and M’gann nods, handing Kara her precarious cone. She scoops a few servings of it into a cup and hands it to her, giving her the thumbs up.
“Happy Pride!” she says, and Lena blinks. M’gann quickly clarifies. “It’s my June specialty flavour, for Pride month. But it’s Kara’s favourite, so I usually keep it around for a little longer.”
Kara nods, mouth already full of her first scoop.
When they take a seat on the now empty picnic table, Lena takes her own first bite, and she can’t stifle the groan that slips out.
“Oh my god,” Lena says, licking off her spoon, “Pride tastes amazing.” It’s fruity and creamy and delicious, and she immediately goes for another spoonful. She looks up from her second bite to see Kara staring at her, a dazed look on her face and melted ice cream dripping down her cone onto her wrist.
“Kara?” Lena asks, and Kara seems to snap out of it. She takes an enormous bite of ice cream, and Lena laughs when she immediately winces in a telltale brainfreeze-face.
“Speaking of Pride,” Kara says when she finally gets through the mouthful, pointing at Lena’s cup, “It’s coming up this weekend. Are you gonna be there?”
“You guys do Pride here?” Lena is starting to feel like nothing should shock her anymore about this town, but even so, there are whole cities elsewhere that don’t have Pride celebrations, let alone tiny towns like this.
“Of course! We don’t have a parade or anything, but we always have a big party at the Livewire. Half-price drinks for all the gays,” Kara says casually, and Lena snorts into her bowl.
“How many gay people can there possibly be here?”
Just as Kara promised, the Midvale Pride Party happens a few days later, and Lena pushes open the door of the Livewire to a completely different bar. It’s been festooned with streamers and paper chains in dazzling rainbow colours, the old karaoke stage cleaned up and decorated with decals and sparkly curtains. There’s a green feather boa wrapped around the mic stand, and Kara is standing under a huge rainbow made of connected balloons in her usual ponytail, white jeans, and a ribbed tank top under a flannel. There’s no hat this time, but she does have several feathers sticking out of her hair in the arrangement of the lesbian flag.
Lena feels suddenly warm, and at the same time she realizes she’s the only person in the room not wearing some kind of Pride paraphernalia.
“Lena, hey! I’m so glad you came!”
Kara, as usual, spots her right away, and Lena smooths down her plain t-shirt self-consciously. She’s pulled into a warm hug right away, and she’s a little breathless when she responds.
“Thanks for inviting me. Why do you look like Freddie Mercury?”
Kara just laughs and doesn’t answer, putting a hand on Lena’s lower back and guiding her towards their usual table.
It’s not a crowded corporate parade or a weekend of drunken partying like Lena is used to, but a small, rowdy gathering where Lena actually feels like she’s having a good time. Nia is there with the trans pride flag painted on her cheeks, and James and Winn are wearing matching shirts that say “Schottsy and the J-Man, rockin’ it since 2012”. Kelly is there in the most relaxed clothes Lena has yet seen her in, and Alex is standing nearby clearly trying not to stare. Lucy is there, a proud bi pride flag tied around her head like a sweatband, and even Leslie is serving drinks in a rainbow romper.
“This is the highest concentration of not-straight people I’ve ever seen in a town with a population of 1500,” Lena remarks as James goes up to get more drinks, and Kara smiles proudly.
“Yeah, we’re pretty gay here.”
A few drinks later, when more people join their table and Lena is forced to scoot so close to Kara that their thighs press together and she can feel the searing heat of her skin, Lena is feeling pretty gay too.
“Hey, Lena! Want a flag?” Lucy yells over the music, offering a variety of stickers over the table. Everything from the pansexual flag to a little sticker that reads ‘ally’ are available, and there’s an appraising look in Lucy’s eye that tells Lena this is her way of asking without asking.
Everyone else at the table seems to be pretending not to watch, but Lena doesn’t mind. With a sure, slightly drunk hand she plucks the lesbian flag from the sticker sheet and sticks it to her shirt, and there’s a genial cheer from the table in response.
“I knew it,” Lucy crows, clapping Lena on the shoulder, and Kelly reaches over for a high-five. Kara, beside her, just smiles knowingly.
The disruption is itself disrupted by the bell on the bartop ringing a few times, and Leslie yelling. “Anyone who’s performing, get your asses to the stage.”
“Kara, the contest is starting!” Winn says, pulling a long, fluffy feather boa and a pair of red cowgirl boots out of a duffel bag Lena hadn’t noticed before.
“Oh, awesome!”
Kara reaches down into the same duffel and pulls something out, winking as she applies what turns out to be a fake moustache. “Pitter patter, let’s get at ‘er.”
Kara disappears backstage with Winn, and Lena is left blinking at the spot she disappeared from.
Part of Midvale Pride, it turns out, is a talent show of sorts. Everyone does their own little karaoke performance, and the winner gets decided by a vote, with a prize of free pizza for a week from the place next door. Winn does a campy interpretation of ‘Redneck Woman’, at one point laying himself across the laps of the entire front row. Nia does a classic Spice Girls anthem (which Brainy claps disproportionately loud for), James does an emotional rendition of Whitney Houston, and Alex gets dragged on stage to do a reluctant Pat Benetar.
By the looks of it, Kara is up last. The singular light on stage swings around dramatically a few times before settling on the centre, and from the makeshift wings steps Kara.
Lena isn’t quite sure how to react.
Kara is still in her tight white pants, but now her hair slicked back into a tight, hidden bun at the base of her neck, and the flannel is nowhere to be seen. She’s just in the white tank top, her biceps on display and her collarbones shining with glitter, and the fake moustache is firmly affixed. The Freddie Mercury look is complete, and as the opening strains of ‘Somebody to Love’ play on the speakers, it all makes sense.
Kara is clearly the frontrunner for the win. She works the crowd like a pro, jumping around and showing off the voice of an angel. Not everyone could hit the high notes in a Queen song, and Kara does it with ease.
Is there nothing she isn’t good at?
It’s all very campy and manageable, and Lena is able to let loose and have a good time without drooling too noticeably at the tattoo she’s never noticed before that circles Kara’s bicep or the way the pants fit her ass. It’s all fine, until the middle of the song.
Because, in the middle of the song, Kara starts to move into the crowd. She does hip thrusts near Winn’s face that are definitely meant to be funny, but Lena finds herself flushing from head to toe instead. She sits on Lucy’s lap, serenading her while Lucy waves a $5 bill, and she pulls Nia to her feet to twirl her a few times. And then, horribly, wonderfully, she makes her way to Lena, who suddenly regrets taking a front row seat.
Kara doesn’t even really touch her, like she did the others. She just drops to her knees, legs spread, and sings directly to Lena in that same dramatic way she’s been doing – it shouldn’t affect her at all. But oh, it does. Since Lena is wearing jeans it’s so easy for Kara to lay a single hand on her knee, and it makes Lena’s legs fall open a tiny bit, and dear god.
She’s just performing, Lena tells herself as her heartbeat skyrockets and seems to land directly in her clit on the way back down. It’s an act. She’s doing it to everyone.
But that doesn’t erase the fact that Kara is essentially kneeling between her legs, her arms on full display, undulating her hips in a way that’s giving Lena very specific mental images.
Even the stupid fake moustache isn’t enough to calm her down.
When Kara finally leaves to jump back on stage for the finale, Lena feels like she could melt into a puddle in her plastic chair.
Kara wins the contest, of course. Apparently last year’s winner was Winn, and Kara was determined to beat him, so she buys everyone a round of half-price drinks in celebration.
“How did I do?” Kara says breathlessly when she gets done paying, finally moustacheless, flopping into the chair next to Lena and handing her the red wine she always orders. Lena grips it tightly, wishing that it was something stronger. Three fingers of scotch, perhaps.
“Clearly you did well, considering you won,” Lena says, taking a careful sip, and Kara waves carelessly.
“Yeah, sure, but they see me make an idiot of myself every year. I want to know what you thought.”
Biting back her first thought - I wanted you to rip that stupid moustache off along with my clothes and possibly every scrap of my dignity – Lena scrambles to force her brain into neutral territory.
She settles on a casual compliment. “I had no idea you could sing like that. You could be a professional.”
Kara smiles, accepting a passing high-five from Lucy. “Eh, I don’t think I’d like that. I prefer cars.”
Lena prefers her that way as well. Muscled, and dextrous, and good with her hands –
Crossing her legs, Lena takes an overly large swallow of wine, hoping the rest of the night passes quickly.
It doesn’t. But luckily, after giving in and getting herself a few doses of hard liquor, she manages to have a good time. The competition turns quickly into a dance party, which then turns into Kara and Nia having a dance-off in the middle of a cheering circle. While they do the robot and the shopping cart back and forth Lena stands on the sidelines, observing intently but trying to remain unseen – she can see Brainy staring at Nia with open affection and Alex and Kelly dancing in a way that’s borderline inappropriate, both of them looking painfully interested but too shy to make the first move – but she’s soon pulled away from her momentary quiet by Lucy.
“Come dance, Lena!”
A few doses of hard liquor turn into a few too many, and before she knows it she’s happily drunk and dancing like an idiot with everyone else.
She’s still coherent enough to know a few things. Firstly, that she has zero dancing skills, and her moves amount to a lot of jumping and arm-flailing; secondly, that Kara is dancing with her, occasionally spinning her around and catching her when she inevitably loses her balance; and thirdly, that she’s never had this much fun in her life. She’s laughing freely, not bothered in the least when other people bump into her or grab her hands to dance, and even the top 40s dance music she usually hates is making her happy. The world is spinning, and Kara smells amazing, and life is good.
When she wakes up on an unknown surface with a pounding headache and an intense craving for coffee, she starts to think that maybe she made a mistake or two last night.
Cracking an eye open, she takes in the surroundings with a blurry gaze. She clearly lost her contacts at some point, and her emergency glasses are at home, so all she can make out in the low morning light is an unfamiliar living room. In front of her is a coffee table scattered with cups and remotes, and the whole room smells vaguely like a strange mix of warm cookies and engine grease. Against the far wall sits a guitar, and there’s a framed picture on the wall of a bumblebee with an undoubtedly cheesy quote underneath.
It doesn’t take three guesses to figure out whose house she’s in.
Alarm courses through her, and she shoots up on what turns out to be a couch – wincing at the spike of pain the movement sends to her aching skull – and takes stock of her situation. She’s still in her clothes from last night, and she’s covered in a few soft blankets. She relaxes, letting out a breath.
We didn’t sleep together.
Ordinarily that would be a statement that would bring her mood down, but she feels relieved. Happy that she didn’t royally fuck up…whatever the hell is going on between them.
Her shoes are sitting neatly beside the couch, and among the empty coffee cups on the table there’s a glass of water and two pills next to a note with a smiley face drawn on it.
It’s sweet and pragmatic and so very Kara, and the gesture makes her smile through her hangover.
The house is quiet. Kara must still be asleep, and quite honestly, Lena doesn’t want to deal with facing whatever nonsense she spewed last night. She only vaguely remembers the party wrapping up, Kara insisting on taking her keys, and walking somewhere she didn’t recognize. She hasn’t been that drunk in a long time, and she’d rather not hear all about it.
As quietly as she can she slips her shoes on, takes the Advil, and starts her quest to find the exit.
Kara’s house is cute, she’ll give her that. It’s cozy and well decorated, with well-worn furniture and lots of knickknacks. The walls of the living room leading into the kitchen are lined with pictures – Kara smiling with Alex, jumping off a dock with Nia, holding beers up with the boys, and decorating a cake with an older blonde woman that Lena assumes is Eliza. Front and centre, in a smaller frame, is a photo that looks much older than the rest – it’s Kara, looking not much older than 10, holding an academic award with a grin that’s missing 2 teeth. She’s standing between a couple that must be her birth parents, both looking proud and happy.
She has no idea how long she stands there, taking in the intimate details of Kara’s life. She meant to sneak out unseen, quickly, but something about the opportunity to learn more about the blonde makes her slow. So slow that she doesn’t notice the figure leaning against the kitchen counter until it’s too late.
“Morning.”
Lena jumps what feels like a foot, whirling around to see Alex Danvers looking at her with a mug of coffee and an unreadable expression.
“Alex!” Lena says loudly, quieting her voice immediately and trying not to look as shaken as she is. “I – I didn’t know you lived here.”
“Mhmm,” Alex hums, taking a slow, deliberate sip of her drink. Lena shifts from one foot to the other, feeling the urge to somehow explain herself.
“I – on the couch. I slept. Kara must have – I just woke up here,” she stutters, and her heart sinks when Alex quirks a knowing brow.
“Uh huh.”
“I’m going to go,” Lena finally says, slinking towards the front hall. Alex nods, clearly trying to hide a grin.
“Okay.”
She avoids Kara for a few days after that.
It just all feels a little overwhelming, suddenly. Pride was the kind of night where, ordinarily, Lena would have no issue grabbing Kara by the front of her sweaty shirt and dragging her into bed for a half-drunken hookup. She’d end up sweaty and sated, her needs curbed for a while, and she and Kara could go their separate ways.
But in those circumstances, the way she conducted herself back home, she never had to see the woman again. Kara is an intrinsic part of her life here, and while she knows that serious dating would never work out, it feels like Kara deserves something a bit more. Something Lena has no idea how to ask for.
In the meantime, a girl can fantasize.