Chapter Text
It’s almost a week after Pride before Lena sees Kara again. She means for it to be longer, truly – she’s still not sure how to broach the subject of Kara basically carrying her home and putting her to bed, seeing Lena act god only knows how ridiculous – but six days after she snuck out of the blonde’s house like a teenager, she finds herself staring at a very expensive sink that refuses to drain.
She could deal with it herself. There’s probably a plumber or a handyman in town somewhere, and she could likely find them with a google search. But somehow, she ends up finding a completely different contact name instead.
“Danvers Auto Shop, Kara speaking!”
Kara’s voice, warm and soothing even through a phone line, makes Lena’s stomach sweep, and she has to clear her throat before she can speak.
“Kara, hi. It’s Lena.”
“Hey!” Kara says, clearly enthused. The happy tone makes Lena relax a little bit, and she feels a bit like a teenager, calling her crush and twirling the landline cord around her finger. “Long time no talk.”
There’s no disapproval or upset in her voice, but even so Lena feels the need to apologize. “Yes, I’m…sorry about that. I just -“
“Oh, it’s okay,” Kara says easily, and Lena can see in her mind’s eye the casual wave Kara is probably doing. “What can I do ya for?”
“Well…my sink isn’t working,” Lena says haltingly, and Kara snorts.
“You know I’m not a plumber, right?”
Lena’s cheeks turn pink, and even though she knows Kara can’t see it, she feels a bit embarrassed anyways. “I know, I just thought – well, I don’t know the businesses around here. I thought you could help me out?”
Lena hears the scratchy sound of the receiver being covered, and a muffled yell on the other line. After a moment, Kara comes back sounding cheery.
“I’ll be there in a couple minutes!”
“Oh, no, you don’t have to – you’re at work, I just thought maybe you could recommend –“
“Don’t be silly. I can fix it, just give me a minute to grab my toolbox, okay?”
Kara hangs up without confirmation. As the dial tone sounds in her ear, she looks around – at her messy kitchen, at her own pajamas and slippers and messy hair – and suddenly her body kicks into overdrive.
“Shit,” she mutters, throwing the phone onto the table. “Shit.” She has approximately 15 minutes before Kara gets here, and she has to get herself ready faster than she ever has before.
She changes in a whirlwind, grabbing the first sundress she can find and throwing her hair into a bun. She brushes her teeth while she frantically tidies the kitchen, the toothbrush hanging out of her mouth precariously, and by the time the doorbell rings she’s feeling at least borderline presentable, putting the cap on her contact solution.
She opens the door to Kara in cargo pants, a dirty tank top and a red flannel, and she hates how much it works for her.
“Kara! Come on in,” Lena says, trying to keep her voice even, but Kara just stares at her for a moment, blinking.
After a few seconds, Lena frowns. “Are you okay?”
Kara startles, shaking her head like she’s trying to get rid of cobwebs. “Yeah! Yeah, I just…I’ve never seen you with your hair up before.”
It takes Lena a second to figure out why that sentence seems so strange. Back home, she’s almost never without her trademark tight bun or high ponytail, to the point where Jack started worrying that she was going to make herself bald with all the hair-pulling. She hadn’t realized, until now, how much she’s been wearing her hair down since she got here. It just feels natural.
Before Lena has to gather a response to that, Kara steps inside and thankfully changes the subject.
“Nice place,” Kara says with a low whistle. “Fancy.”
“Thanks. I mostly bought it for the location,” Lena replies, leading Kara towards the kitchen.
“But the house can’t hurt, right? Bet it’s hard to get this much space in the city.” Kara sets her toolbox down on the stone tiles in front of the sink, and Lena clears her throat of its sudden stickiness.
Kara gets to work right away, opening up the cupboard underneath the sink and sliding in on her back to fiddle with the pipes, and Lena tries very very hard to maintain a conversation instead of staring blatantly at the sliver of Kara’s stomach she can see at the hem of her shirt.
“So, um. How’s it going down there?” Lena asks, cringing the moment the words leave her mouth. She’s glad Kara’s face is obscured by the cupboard door, because she doesn’t think she could look her in the eye right now.
“It’s good! I don’t think I’ve ever worked on a sink this clean before,” Kara remarks.
“How many sinks have you worked on, exactly?”
“Oh, a few here and there,” Kara says cryptically, blindly grabbing at one of the tools laid out on the floor.
“I thought you were a mechanic?” Lena says, crossing her arms. Kara seems to be a jack of all trades, and thus far, it seems there’s nothing she can’t do.
“Cars aren’t the only thing I’m good at fixing up.”
At that, heat blooms embarrassingly quickly in Lena’s abdomen, zipping immediately down to throb in her clit. It was benign, Kara’s statement – she definitely wasn’t referring to all the ways her talented hands could be put to work fixing every ache in Lena’s body. But Lena’s traitorous brain runs with it like a dog let loose, sprinting into the horny distance, and she has to cross her legs to relieve even a tiny bit of the now-uncomfortable pressure.
Just then, something bursts under the sink, and water starts spraying out at an alarming volume.
“Shoot!” Kara sputters, trying to stop the flow with her hands. “Forgot to turn the water off –“
“What do I do?” Lena asks loudly, all thirst forgotten in the wake of her kitchen flooding.
“There’s a valve under here somewhere –“
Lena rips open all the cupboard doors and finds it beside her stock of cleaning supplies, cranking it with slippery hands, and the water finally stops. She steps gingerly over the puddles now covering her floor to find Kara still lying under the sink, now soaked completely. Her white tank top is see-through but probably the cleanest it’s ever been, and Lena has to look away again to hide the flush that creeps up her neck at the way the fabric clings to her skin.
She has muscles everywhere.
So much for a distraction. Kara’s breathing heavily, her stomach flexing and her sports bra clearly visible, and Lena says the first thing that comes to her mind.
“Do you want some lemonade?”
It was meant to be a diversion, something to keep her busy while Kara dries off. But as she brings a glass of cold lemonade and a towel over to the very wet mechanic still sitting on her kitchen floor, Lena does her best to ignore the fact that she’s essentially invited Kara into a porno.
It’s even more uncomfortable as Kara takes the glass, downing it in a few seconds while Lena watches a droplet of water slide down the side of her neck.
Pull it together.
“Thanks!” Kara says brightly, putting the empty glass above her on the counter and wiping her mouth uselessly with the back of her also-wet arm. “Hold on, I almost had it. It’ll be fixed in a jiffy.”
The wholesomeness of Kara’s naiveté is enough to bring Lena back to the present. She clears her throat, getting herself a glass of cold water from the fridge and covertly holding it against her warm forehead.
Under the sink, Kara speaks up again.
“So, you coming to the festival this weekend?”
Lena frowns, moving the cool glass down to her chest. “I thought we just had a festival?”
“This one is for Canada day,” Kara says, talking loudly over the clattering of tools and pipes. “We do it every year. It used to bring a lot of tourists up here, but now it’s mostly locals.”
“Is it going to be anything like last weekend?” Lena asks, taking a long drink. She’s honestly still a little hungover, and another party like that one sounds like the last thing she wants. “Because I don’t think I can do that again.”
Kara laughs, peering out between the pipes at Lena. “No, it’s much more tame. There’s a potluck, and a bit of a party, and some fireworks. And then we usually have a tractor pull.”
There’s a final-sounding grinding noise, and Kara finally emerges from the cupboard victorious, her wet ponytail starting to fall out.
“Got it!” she says, brushing her hands off on her pants. “You just had a blockage. All good now.”
“Thanks. I feel like I should repay you somehow,” Lena says, without thinking, and immediately a wave of complete mortification rolls over her.
So much for avoiding the porno references.
Luckily, Kara artfully sidesteps the obvious innuendo.
“Well, you can come to the festival.”
“I’ve never been to a potluck before,” Lena says, trying to get Kara out the door without another horrific double entendre. “Or a tractor pull. It sounds fun.”
“Seriously?” Kara gasps, packing up her tools. “Okay, you have to come. I’ll pick you up.”
Kara leaves with a promise to pick her up Saturday at 1, and her truck has already trundled down the driveway before Lena notices that Kara’s flannel is still draped over one of her kitchen stools.
Well, until she sees Kara on Saturday, it can’t hurt to wear it around the house sometimes. The fact that it noticeably smells like Kara when she wears it to bed is completely secondary.
Saturday dawns with Lena feeling a nauseating blend of excited and nervous.
She ends up waking up at 6:30, tossing and turning until she finally admits that she’s up for the day. After coffee, a shower, and the long and arduous process of deciding what to wear, it’s still only 9:30, and she resigns herself to pacing the house until Kara’s truck rolls up at 12:45.
For the first time, Lena decides to dress down for the occasion. At Pride she felt like she didn’t quite dress right, and this time, she wants to go for comfort. She wears a pair of the cutoff jean shorts that Nia insisted she buy (it’s because the July air is so humid, she tells herself. Not because she wants to see Kara’s reaction. It’s completely practical) and a red t-shirt, and at the last moment she grabs the flannel that Kara left at her house last week and puts it on over top.
When Kara sees her, her eyes almost bug out of her head, and Lena feels a spark of gratification – but it lasts only a few seconds, because soon enough she gets a good look at what Kara is wearing.
Apparently, in contrast to Lena dressing down, Kara dressed up. She’s wearing the first pair of clean jeans Lena has ever seen her in, loosely fit and worn low on her hips with a blue checkered button-up, and her hands look scrubbed clean, pink and calloused except for the barest hints of black around her fingernails. But the most affecting part of the whole ensemble, the part that hits Lena the hardest, is Kara’s hair.
It’s the first time Lena has ever seen her without her ever-present ponytail and ballcap. Her hair is down, falling in blonde waves around her angular face, and she’s biting her lip as if she’s not completely sure that Lena will like it.
As if Kara isn’t the most stupidly attractive person Lena has ever met, no matter what her hair looks like.
But Lena can’t say that to her face. She struggles to find a compliment that won’t bare her entire soul to Kara as the blonde makes her way from her truck to Lena’s door, since you look like what I imagine heaven is like seems a little bit intense.
“You showered,” is what comes out of Lena’s mouth when Kara finally stands in front of her, hands in her pockets, and after a few seconds of silence Kara bursts into laughter. Her nervousness seems to disappear, and suddenly she’s the Kara Lena has known for weeks now – loose, and confident, and grinning.
“I’m known to do that every so often.”
Lena blushes, grabbing her keys and slipping out of the house before she can say something stupid again. As Kara opens the truck door for her, Lena notices something that makes her smile – Kara dressed up, but she’s still wearing the same scuffed workboots she always does.
It makes affection thrum in her chest, not entirely unwelcome. Kara starts the truck, but as they’re about to pull onto the road, she pauses with a jolt.
“Hey, is that my shirt?”
The festival is mostly a potluck lunch, one that Kara insisted Lena didn’t need to bring anything to, and it turns out she was right. The tables are overladen with food, everyone scattered over a mass of picnic tables at a pavilion by the lake. There’s everything from Swedish meatballs to frito pie, and with a bright, sunny day overhead, it seems like the entire town has come out. James and Winn wave from a nearby bench, Winn’s mouth crammed with what looks like an entire bowl of guacamole dip, and Alex makes her presence known by throwing a nerf football with devastating accuracy to peg Kara in the side of the head as she’s trying to play a game of horseshoes.
Nia and Brainy turn up around 3, walking closely together, and it’s painfully obvious that they’re both thinking about tangling their hands together – Brainy’s arm is stiffer than usual, and Nia keeps brushing her knuckles against his, but neither of them seem to be taking each other’s hints.
“Kara!” Nia sighs, looking down at the blonde’s feet exasperatedly. “Didn’t I tell you to change your shoes?”
Kara, for the first time since Lena has met her, actually blushes.
“The ones you gave me were really uncomfortable!” Kara mutters, rubbing the back of her neck and notably not making eye contact with either of them. "They weren't worn in!"
“Well, at least you wore your hair down,” Nia sighs, and warmth blooms in Lena's chest.
Kara asked Nia for fashion advice. Maybe, possibly, to impress Lena. When Nia and Brainy finally walk away, looking for food, Lena finds herself resisting that same impulse she saw them wrestling with – all she wants to do right now is twine her fingers with Kara’s larger ones.
Before long, though, she gets distracted by the busyness of the afternoon. In comparison to last weekend, this celebration is tame, but Lena is relieved by it. It just seems like a big excuse to socialize and eat – at least, until the sun goes down, and people start carrying in their bring-your-own coolers of beer. Kara cracks two open from the notably large cooler on Alex’s tailgate and hands one to Lena, and together they watch Winn and James start unloading a huge speaker system from the back of James’ truck.
“So, is every weekend a party here?” Lena asks, swinging her feet idly as they watch J’onn and Alex tossing the nerf football back and forth on the small sandy beach near the water.
“Only during the summer,” Kara replies, taking a sip of beer. “Winter lasts like 6 months here, so we all hibernate.”
Lena snorts, and Kara looks deeply pleased with herself. Lena assumes that it’s an exaggeration, but a party is what shapes up. A jump in the lake, blast the music, dance in a big patch of grass by the water kind of party. Everyone backs their cars and trucks in to surround the makeshift dancefloor and opens the trunks and tailgates to reveal a cornucopia of alcohol, some kind of game of diving chicken is happening on the dock that juts out into the lake, and James and Alex start up a choreographed-looking dance when an upbeat country song starts to play.
“Kara!” Alex shouts, waving her over and she and James step in line. “Get your ass over here!”
Immediately Kara jumps off the tailgate, holding out an expectant hand. The moment Lena realizes what Kara wants, she shakes her head, clutching onto the tailgate as if she’s afraid Kara is going to drag her bodily onto the dancefloor.
“Absolutely not.”
“Come on!” Kara whines, jumping up and down impatiently. “It’s the Devil Went Down to Georgia!”
“The violin song?” Lena says, not letting go of the truck that she’s fully convinced is the only reason she’s not being made to dance right now. Kara holds up a finger, looking playfully indignant.
“Firstly, it’s a fiddle. And secondly, it’s a great song to line dance to!”
Everyone else seems to agree with her – even Brainy has now joined the line, his hands hooked in his belt loops, but Lena shakes her head again.
“Not happening.”
With an exasperated groan, Kara finally gives up, grabbing the cowboy hat off the nearest person’s head – it happens to be Lucy, who’s sitting in a lawn chair next to the truck – and running towards the growing line of people. Lucy throws her empty beer can in retaliation, but it misses by a solid 2 metres, hitting James instead.
“She’d better not wreck my hat,” Lucy grumbles, settling back into her chair and opening up another drink. “Why didn’t you go up with her?”
“I don’t know this dance,” Lena says, gesturing at the line of people all moving in perfect sync. “How the hell does everyone here know this dance?”
“We learn it in gym class, in elementary school. Didn’t you?”
Lena had actually learned how to waltz and play croquet, but she keeps her mouth shut and watches the crowd instead.
It still astounds her sometimes, how attracted she is to Kara. It’s a wild thing, something deep and alive in her chest that wakes up and howls when Kara laughs in that way she has, her eyes squint up and she sounds so utterly delighted that she can’t hold it in. She’s doing it now, throwing her head back and lighting up Lena’s chest as she stamps and claps along to the beat in sync, singing the words to the fast-paced song Lena has only heard once or twice before. She looks ridiculous and adorable, and when the song finally ends, Lena is distracted enough in her soft feelings that when Kara pulls her onto the grass, she doesn’t protest until it’s too late.
Before Kara can pull her into the crowd proper, which is just starting to get back into a brand-new dance to a song Lena has only heard once, Lena digs her heels in.
“Kara, I am not dancing to Cotton-Eye Joe.”
Kara laughs, unwilling to take ‘no’ for an answer this time. “Come on, Lena! I promise, it’ll be fun. If it isn’t, I’ll…I’ll jump in the lake naked.”
Lena can’t help but bark out a nervous laugh at that promise. She isn’t sure whether she wants to try to have fun or not, with something like that on the line – something like Kara, naked and diving into the water, probably floating to the surface, her hair slicked back –
Lena is sure she’d make an idiot of herself about it, but it would be worth it.
Distracted as she is by the idea of a wet, naked Kara, she loses the fight to resist dancing. Kara grabs both of her hands and starts pulling them back and forth in a basic motion, and Lena allows it.
“I don’t know the steps!” she shouts over the music, but Kara is just jumping up and down to the beat with Lena’s hands still clasped in hers.
“You don’t have to, just shuffle your feet!”
“That’s ridiculous –“ Lena protests, but Kara just links their arms together and starts to skip in a circle in time with everyone else, and all protests go out the window.
After the first chorus, Lena thinks she has the basic steps down. There’s a lot of weird foot movements that she can barely follow, but the rest is just a lot of linking arms and spinning, and she’s actually laughing at Kara’s antics when everyone goes completely off-book.
When the music shifts into an exuberant and hilarious banjo solo, one person in every dancing pair around her stops, hugs their partner around the waist, lifts them slightly into the air, and starts to spin.
And that’s all the warning Lena has before Kara is in her space. She gets a quick “hold on!” in, but Lena is already being lifted, Kara’s strong arms braces firmly around her middle.
“Kara!” she squeals, holding on for dear life as they start to spin dizzyingly in a static circle. There’s a lot of sensory input right now – Kara is warm and solid against her, those hands firm on her middle, and her face is somewhere in the vicinity of Lena’s chest – she can feel Kara’s breath, getting quicker with exertion and laughter. She’s being held as if she weighs nothing and then pressed hard into a very attractive woman, and if it weren’t for the spinning, the entire party could probably see the hunger Lena feels at that.
But the hunger is blotted out by dizziness, and then laughter as Kara finally loses her balance and stumbles, bracing so that her body blocks Lena’s fall and hitting the grass with a whumph.
“Jesus!” Lena gasps breathlessly, rolling off the taller woman and feeling the ground lurch under her like a funhouse. “Kara, are you okay –“
But Kara is lying comfortably on her back, her hair spread out over the grass like a halo, and she’s laughing.
Cackling would probably be a more apt description, really. The laugh seems to take over her whole body contagiously, and soon enough Lena is laughing too, flopping onto the grass with Kara and letting the dusky sky spin in dizzying circles above them. Most other people seem to be in the same state as the song ends, either on the ground or seriously bent over, and when Kara punches her fist up and lets out a loud whoop, most of the crowd responds.
“Is that always how you end that dance?” Lena asks once they’ve calmed down, sitting up and holding their sore sides.
“Every time,” Kara says happily. A new song comes on and some people start to dance, but it seems like the end of Cotton Eye Joe signaled a drinking and smoking break of some kind. Finally Kara gets up, staggering only once, and dusts the grass off her now-stained jeans.
“Aw, nuts. Nia’s gonna kill me.”
Once the sky is dark enough, the fireworks come out. Kara leads Lena to the rickety boat launch while everyone else starts sticking them strategically into the ground, and the noise of the party gives way a little to the quiet lapping of the water. Lena can almost see her house from here, the lights on her back deck glowing in the distance, but for the first time in her life, she’s happier not being at home.
As they sit down at the edge a single loon cries in the distance, and Kara takes a piece of grass that’s still sticking out of her hair and clasps it between her thumbs, her fingers cupped on either side.
“What are you doing?” Lena asks, and Kara answers by blowing into the strange grass-hand instrument she’s made in an almost-perfect loon call. The loon cries back, and they maintain a back-and-forth until Kara drops the piece of grass into the water.
“My cousin Clark taught me how to do that,” she says, kicking at the surface with the toe of her boot. The ripples swallow the grass, and Kara’s feet still.
“The one that lives in the city? The journalist?” Lena ventures quietly, and Kara nods.
“Mhmm. He grew up near here too, but he’s older. His parents died when he was a baby, and he was raised by the Kents, about 20 minutes down the highway. Family friends. I was supposed to stay with him, after my parents...” Kara trails off, and clears her throat.
There’s a thread of sadness in Kara’s voice, one that Lena has never heard before. Unsure of what to say she puts a hand over Kara’s, squeezing gently before pulling away, and Kara smiles in appreciation. It’s a tiny nugget, but every crumb she can find about Kara’s life is one Lena appreciates.
“Hey, the fireworks are starting!”
Kara hurries to take off her boots and insists that Lena do the same, and soon enough they’re dipping their bare toes in the water as the sky lights up with multicoloured pops and bangs. They illuminate Kara’s face, excited and smiling and beautiful, and with their hands almost touching, the fireworks in the sky are just mirroring the ones in Lena’s chest.
As suddenly as the explosions above them, Lena has a vivid vision of leaning over, running her fingers through Kara’s soft hair, and leaning in for a kiss.
It’s not surprising, as fantasies go. Lena has thought about kissing Kara before - many times in fact, as much as she wishes she could stop. But this is by far the most intense, and most realistic. She can practically feel Kara’s lips, can almost smell her shampoo, can imagine how it would feel to swing a leg over her thighs and press herself down into Kara’s lap, and suddenly the images aren’t quite as PG as before.
She looks away quickly, hoping the darkness will hide how her body lights up, and she misses the way Kara turns her head, watching intently as Lena takes in the colours.
All in all, it’s the single best night Lena can remember having. It’s practically perfect. At least, until they’re leaving, heading back to Kara’s truck parked on the road.
“Danvers!”
The voice behind them is loud enough that Lena jumps a little, spinning around and spotting Oliver Queen stalking towards them. Kara turns around much more calmly, sticking her thumbs into her belt loops.
“Queen,” she drawls, inclining her head in his direction. She seems entirely too chill in Lena’s opinion, considering Oliver’s sleeves are rolled and he’s looking ready to snap.
“I believe we’ve got some unfinished business.”
“Come on, Ollie,” Kara says, shaking her head. “Don’t ruin the party with this bull.”
But Oliver just cracks his knuckles, handing his ballcap to his friend.
“I’m not usually one for hitting chicks, but –“ he says, flexing his fists, and Kara sighs, unbuttoning the wrists of her shirt and rolling up her sleeves in a businesslike fashion.
“Sorry, Lena. This’ll just take a minute,” Kara says as she does it, like this is a mild inconvenience that she'll have squared away shortly.
Lena hardly has time to get out of the way before Oliver swings just as Kara is finishing the sleeve, yelling angrily - but Kara sidesteps him easily. He overbalances, wobbling for a few seconds before he rights himself, and Kara rolls her neck from side to side.
“That wasn’t a fair start. Now who’s the cheater?”
“Fuck you!” Oliver grunts, putting his fists up and starting to circle. Kara does the same, and for a few seconds they hover in a stalemate before Oliver strikes again, winding up for a hit that never lands. Kara dodges it, ducking around his arm and throwing her elbow back hard into the middle of his back as she passes.
He grunts in pain as her elbow connects, his back bending as he stumbles, and his knees hit the gravel while Kara finishes rolling her sleeve. Once it’s done, she offers him a hand, clearly willing to bury the hatchet.
“I don’t want to fight you, Ollie,” she says quietly, and Oliver seems to consider it. He’s breathing heavily, holding his back, and for a moment Lena thinks he might take Kara’s hand – but instead he explodes off the ground and strikes again, and this time one of his fists connects with Kara’s cheekbone with a sickening crack.
She rears back, grunting, and when she moves her hair out of the way Lena can see that her cheek is bleeding.
Lena’s stomach drops, and Kara touches the spot with a gentle hand, frowning at the red that comes away on her fingertips.
“Are you packing?” she asks, and Lena has no earthly clue what that could possibly mean in relation to a fight but Oliver answers the question right away - he opens his hand to reveal a cigarette lighter clenched in his fist, which he tosses into the dirt.
Kara, who up until this point had been merely humoring Oliver, seems to grow a few inches after that. Her face sets in grim determination, and she pulls a ponytail out of her pocket, gathering her hair up and out of her face.
Oliver doesn’t seem to sense the change in intensity, but Lena does. And it makes her shiver.
“Nobody beats me, Danvers, especially not you. It was true in high school, and it’s true now –“
He’s cut off by Kara’s fist connecting with his face a grand total of 4 times, each harder than the last. Before Lena can blink he’s sprawled out on the dusty gravel with Kara towering over him, her fist bloodied and her face grim. Oliver groans and Kara leans over, picking up the lighter he had clenched in his hand and handing it over to his friend, who flinches when Kara steps closer. Kara smiles at him, the genuine expression conflicting with the man still lying motionless on the ground.
“When he comes to, go get J’onn or Kelly to look him over. Give him an ice pack or two and he’ll be fine.”
The guy nods silently, and Kara turns back around.
“Where were we?”
She escorts Lena back to her truck calmly, and once they’re safely inside, Lena finally explodes.
“What the fuck was his problem!” she rages, and Kara’s eyes go wide. “Just coming at you like that! Look what he did to your eye –“ Lena reaches out, unthinking, and traces gently over the still-bleeding cut on Kara’s cheekbone.
Kara smiles, only wincing a little bit at the pain it obviously causes her, and shrugs.
“It was just a tilly. By next week, he’ll be back to playing hockey with us like normal. Guys like Ollie just need to try to prove themselves when they get beat.”
Lena gapes at her, at the way she’s clearly totally calm about the whole situation, and she’s so flabbergasted that she doesn’t even think to ask what the hell kind of made-up word tilly is.
“So what was he talking about high school for?” Lena asks, and Kara’s face falls a little, the lightheartedness flickering for a moment. She chews on her bottom lip, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel before she answers.
“In high school, we…dated the same girl. Siobhan. She left him for me, and then…she left me for him.”
There’s clearly old pain in Kara’s voice, and Lena winces, nodding her understanding. It explains why Oliver reacted so explosively to Kara beating him – his ego is clearly still sore from over 10 years ago, even though the girl went back to him in the end.
“And where is she now?” Lena asks, and Kara shrugs.
“Dunno. She moved to the city.”
Kara looks a little sad, looking out the windshield with a reflective expression, and Lena quickly changes the subject.
“Well, you certainly kicked his ass.”
Kara chuckles, finally starting the truck, and Lena is relieved to see the pensive look from before is gone. “I really did, huh?”
Lena laughs with her, shaking her head at the ridiculous hick she somehow illogically finds herself attracted to.
Kara bids her goodnight at her door, her eye starting to swell in a way she manages to make look cute, and Lena has to physically resist throwing herself at those broad shoulders. She’s always been anti-violence, steering L-Corp away from weapons technology and towards humanitarianism and biomedical tech, but even she has to admit that watching Kara take down a man almost twice her size in a few hits has made an impression. A deep one.
She’s a little bit turned on, and it makes itself broadly known the moment she closes the door.
She tries to shake it off. She pours herself a glass of wine, sinks into a bubble bath, and turns on some deeply unsexy jazz music, trying to put the whole thing out of her mind. But her willpower seems to be less and less effective lately, and soon enough it’s another night of self-care. Another night where she makes herself come thinking about Kara - except this time she’s imagining strong arms, hands slipping under the collar of a blue button-up, and Kara’s fingers inside her on that boat launch, spreading her legs and making her come under the open sky.
She’s more disappointed than ever when she opens her eyes to find herself alone as always, the only sky being the white ceiling of her darkened bedroom.
After that night, Lena starts seeing Kara more often. She stops by the bar on most nights even if both of them are sober – apparently, in a town this small, the bar is really the only place to hang out even if nobody is drinking. Alex will often send her off for a long lunch and they’ll go to Lucy’s together, and sometimes when it’s busier, Lena will bring her a burger and they’ll sit in the office or on the picnic bench outside and enjoy a few minutes in each other’s company. It’s something Lena has never experienced before, this kind of casual friendship, and she enjoys it even if she’s usually having to suppress an avalanche of other feelings.
On one such day, after they’ve paid their respective bills at Lucy’s and start walking back to the shop, Kara drops another opportunity for quality time.
“So, is everyone going to the Livewire tonight?” Lena asks, and to her surprise Kara shakes her head.
“Nah, not tonight. We have a pickup game going at 6.”
Kara kicks idly at a rock on the sidewalk with her boot, and Lena frowns.
“Pickup game? For what?”
“Hockey!” Kara says brightly, and Lena’s confusion only increases.
“It’s…summertime.”
Kara laughs, and sticks her hands into her pockets. “Well, it’s ball hockey. In the winter, we ice the rink over.” Suddenly, she turns towards Lena with an excited look. “Hey, you should come play!”
Lena snorts loudly at the very idea of her playing a sport, but at Kara’s confused and slightly wounded look, she quickly amends.
“Kara, I’ve never touched a hockey stick in my life.”
Kara stops dead. The look on her face is one of utter disbelief, as if Lena just said the absolute wildest thing she’s ever heard in her life.
“Not even in school?” she asks, and Lena scoffs.
“My mother paid the headmaster to let me skip gym class and do advanced math tutoring instead. She didn’t want me wasting my time.”
“Sports aren’t a waste of time, they’re fun! You have to play at least once,” Kara insists, but Lena shakes her head as they approach the shop door.
“Believe me when I say – there’s nothing I’d rather do less,” Lena says honestly. Kara, though, seems set on the idea.
“Well, at least come and watch. Maybe you’ll be inspired,” she suggests, and Lena wants to say no. She should say no. The last thing she wants to do is turn into the airheaded idiot she becomes whenever she sees Kara in a state of exertion, in public. But Kara looks so earnest, and pleading, and Lena knows before the words leave her mouth that she can’t refuse.
“…I’ll think about it.”
She definitely turns up, and Kara is definitely at the rink (which amounts to an outdoor wooden fence circling a large rectangle of cement) wearing nothing but basketball shorts, her blue cap, and a sports bra, and Lena definitely considers just leaving before anyone sees her to hide in the sweet darkness of her room and fantasize vigorously about the way Kara’s skin glows in the sun – but Alex, fucking Alex, sees her before she can bolt.
“Lena, over here!”
Alex – who is wearing an actual shirt, thank you, god damn Kara Danvers and her decisions to play sports practically naked – waves her over to where the group is scattered around some makeshift benches. James is there doing some light stretches, and Nia is wrapping some kind of tape around the handle of her hockey stick. Lena recognizes a few people on the other team – Mike, the guy with the loud truck, as well as Leslie and Oliver, who’s sporting a bruised face and a much better attitude.
“Surprised to see you here,” Alex says knowingly as Lena sits gingerly down on the splintery bench, and Lena fights a blush.
“I’ve never seen a hockey game before.”
Winn laughs, but when Lena arches a brow, he looks just as disbelieving as Kara did when Lena said she hadn’t played.
“Wait…you mean like, live, right?” he asks, and all the attention in the group suddenly zeroes in on her. She shifts uncomfortably, sitting up straighter on instinct.
“No, I’ve just never seen one.”
“Are you even Canadian?!” James asks, and Lena actually laughs.
“Well, technically I was born in Ireland,” she says, shrugging, and Kara looks at her sharply.
“I didn’t know that!”
James seems much less interested in Lena’s heritage and much more interested in her lack of passion for hockey.
“Well, Irish or no, you’re about to watch the world’s greatest sport,” he says, and Winn makes a squeaky noise of dissent.
“Well, I prefer basketball, which is actually a Canadian invention –“
“The world’s greatest sport, babe.”
Winn sighs affectionately. “Right. The world’s greatest sport.” He pats James on the shoulder consolingly, but as soon as James turns to talk to Alex, he shakes his head solemnly at Lena, who tries to hide her grin behind her hand.
When Kara and James leave to set up the goals and talk to Mike and Leslie, Nia plops down in the vacant spot next to Lena, slipping a large glove onto her right hand and grabbing a helmet. Lena’s brow furrows.
“So, you play hockey? I wouldn’t have guessed that,” Lena says, taking in Nia’s small physique, and Nia laughs.
“I’m the goalie!”
Lena blinks, looking between Nia’s willowy frame and the large net that Kara is dragging into place nearby.
“…how?”
Everyone laughs like it’s some kind of inside joke, and it’s Alex that takes pity on Lena and explains. “She’s skinny, but Nia’s the fastest catcher I’ve ever seen. She could catch a ball going at the speed of light in that mitt.”
Nia shrugs, pulling her helmet down to cover her face. “People underestimate me.”
“I bet,” Lena says, humbled. “I’m sorry I added to the problem.”
“Oh, it’s all good! It just makes it even funnier when I cream them,” Nia says cheerfully, and with that she gets up and skips happily onto the rink.
Once the game starts Lena sits between Kelly – who claims to be here to support her brother, but seems to cheer an awful lot when Alex scores goals – and Winn, who spends most of the time sighing dreamily every time James so much as touches the ball. Brainy sits on Winn’s other side, definitely staring at Nia with every super-powered braincell.
It makes her keenly aware of what position she’s in here; which is to say, she’s one of the thirsty cheerleaders.
Great.
Honestly though, as much as she resents her attraction being so obvious, it is fun to watch. Kara is a great player, not the best of the bunch but consistent and gutsy, and as she plays she starts to sweat. And flex. And do a lot of showy jumping around. She does chest-bumps with James, lifts Nia up when she makes spectacular saves, and does what seems like everything she can do to show off her strength and endurance while Lena crosses her legs in discomfort.
It’s somehow both worse and better than watching her fight.
This time, because Lena doesn’t have to worry about Kara’s safety, she can pay more attention to the details. Details like the way Kara’s shorts ride low on her hips and reveal a ‘V’ that Lena wants to follow with her mouth, or how her stupid, charming, adorable smile lights up everyone around her and makes Lena’s heart feel lighter even from 20 feet away.
Luckily for her sanity (but unluckily for her raging libido), it’s a short game. Kara’s team wins by 2 goals thanks to Alex’s aggressive offense and Nia’s goalkeeping, and Oliver even gives Kara a respectful nod – tinged with a bit of fear, Lena notes – as he heads back to the benches.
When Kelly rises to go congratulate James and stealthily check out Alex, Kara plops down in her empty spot, catching a towel that Nia throws her way and mopping her face and neck with it.
“So, what did you think of your first hockey experience?” Kara asks, taking a long drink from her Space Jam-branded water bottle. Some of the water spills out and over her cheek, running down her neck, and Lena looks away abruptly.
“It was exhilarating,” Lena says sarcastically, hoping that Kara did not at any point during the game look over and see the clearly enamored look on her face. Kara just laughs, slinging the towel over her shoulder.
“We’ll make a fan of you, yet.”
Lena means to fire back – something about Kara needing to score more goals first, the thought half-formed – but they’re interrupted by a tall, bearded man holding a coke bottle full of murky brown liquid. He stands in front of Kara’s seated form, his waist far too close for comfort, and looks down at her with a grin half-concealed by the huge bump under his bottom lip.
The identity of the lump reveals itself when he spits into the bottle, the saliva coming out a revolting brown. Chewing tobacco.
Kara seems just as put off by it as Lena is. She sighs, leaning back so she’s less close to his crotch, and purses her lips.
“Mike.”
Ah. So this is Mike. He certainly fits Kara’s description of ‘greasy skid’ – his hair is slicked back from his face and his beard is patchy, like he’s trying hard to be a man but it’s not quite leaving the ‘pube’ stage. Lena remembers him vaguely from the game, where he did almost nothing, and from that night when he roared by in the truck that’s so clearly compensating for something. And, as he opens his mouth, it’s clear that his personality matches.
“Heard you kicked Ollie’s ass,” Mike says appraisingly, spitting into the pop bottle again and grinning in a way that comes out clownish with the tobacco in his lip. “I like girls who can take a tumble.”
“Kick rocks, Mike,” Kara grumbles, averting her eyes from the show Mike is trying to put on, but he’s annoyingly persistent.
“When are you finally gonna go out with me, Danvers?”
“Last time I checked, I’m still a lesbian,” Kara says, standing up to her full height. She’s tall, but not quite as tall as Mike, and he continues to grin down at her as if her ire somehow makes him happy.
“Gimme a chance and I could change that,” Mike says, and anger rises in Lena’s chest like a sleeping dragon. Kara is visibly uncomfortable but clearly doesn’t want to cause a scene here, and Mike is either willfully oblivious or just cruel.
“Fuck off,” Kara snaps, and Mike turns his attention instead to Lena, still sitting on the bench.
“Alright, how about you, city girl? You a lesbo like Danvers, or do you want a little country in you?” Mike says lecherously, grabbing at the fork of his jeans and laughing. Kara looks like she’s about to explode as Mike turns his head to look back at his friends, who are all watching the interaction with either suspense or mild discomfort – but Lena is perfectly capable of taking care of herself.
She narrows her eyes, standing up and waiting for Mike to turn back around to make her move. When he finally looks back at her, smug and uncaring, she moves her hand at lightning speed to seize at the place he just tried to thrust in her face and squeeze it with all her strength.
Immediately, Mike buckles. His knees bend and he doubles over in pain, a vague wheezing sound the only noise he’s capable of making as Lena digs her nails into his groin.
“That was very rude, Mike,” she says in a light, airy tone, as his friends all yell in sympathetic pain behind him. “You know how rude that was, don’t you?”
Mike makes a garbled noise, his knees clearly wanting to collapse but unable to with Lena’s grasp keeping him up. Lena doesn't let up, and Mike squeaks loudly.
“I think you should apologize to both of us. Don’t you, Kara?”
Kara, who’s watching with her mouth agape and a delighted expression, nods mutely.
Lena puts on her best boardroom smile, cold and calculating and entirely intimidating. “You heard the lady. What do we say for our inappropriate comments?”
Mike grunts, but as if he can sense that Lena is about to squeeze again, he manages to rasp out a word.
“…sorry.”
“And, are we going to sexually harass the women in this town again?”
Mike groans, starting to struggle, but Lena keeps her hold.
“I’d like an answer. Today, if you don't mind.”
“No, okay! No, I won’t do it again!” he wheezes. Kara is still gaping, and Lena feels just a little bit proud of it.
“Good.”
She releases him abruptly, and Mike falls into a heap at her feet. When she taps his shoulder with her toe, he groans pathetically.
“Oh, you’re fine,” she says dismissively, waving a hand. “Sit on an ice pack and you’ll be good as new. Kara?”
Kara nods, still mute, and follows Lena in stepping over Mike’s body and heading towards the rest of the team. As they approach, she can see that Alex is laughing so hard that she’s bent double, and James is giving them a reverent slow clap as Winn cups a nervous hand over his own genitals.
“I’ve been trying to get him to leave me alone since we were in high school,” Alex finally says when they join the group, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “I had no idea all it took was plucking his grapes.”
Lena shrugs. “I’ve dealt with a lot of assholes. When you can’t threaten them with corporate sabotage, sometimes you have to get physical.”
Everyone laughs, and Kara throws a sweaty arm around her shoulders, and Lena feels like for the first time in as long as she can remember, maybe she’s found her place.
After that, life in Midvale seems to ease into a natural rhythm that Lena didn’t expect. She spends less and less time in her home lab and more time in town – not just visiting Kara at the shop, but actually spending time with other people. Sitting at the beach with Nia, playing pool with James, eating lunch with Winn, showing Brainy her home lab and watching his talented mind go wild. She’s making friends, real ones, and more than ever she tries to put her imminent move back to the city at the end of the summer out of her mind and just try to enjoy herself.
The whole situation gets even more challenging a few days later, when she goes into town for a few errands and idly decides to stop by the shop for lunch with Kara. She grabs a sandwich and salad from Lucy’s – so often Kara ends up eating hot pockets or bags of chips for lunch because she forgets to make one for herself (how she keeps that body, Lena has no idea), and Lena feels like she needs something healthy for once – and when she shows up, she hears voices inside the garage.
Alex’s voice is first, ringing out in exasperation so loudly that Lena doesn’t even need to strain her ears.
“It’s clear that you’re crazy about her, that’s all I’m saying,” Alex says, and Lena hears Kara’s awkward laugh follow.
“I’m not – Lena is great, really great, but I’m not crazy –“
“I saw the way you looked at her last weekend. We all did, Casanova.”
“Look, she’s gorgeous,” Kara says, and Lena feels the beginnings of a hot, full-body blush. “Of course I was looking at her.”
Lena shifts from foot to foot, her mind going a mile a minute. Kara thinks she’s gorgeous. Kara was looking at her. Kara is gay and thinks she’s gorgeous and was looking at her.
It’s all a little bit too much for her overheated brain.
“I know she is, clearly, but nobody looks at someone the way you were without wanting to get down on one knee,” Alex says, before pausing and amending her statement. “Or, both knees. Whatever. Either way, you should get to it.”
Images of exactly what that would entail jump to Lena’s mind immediately, and the following wave of overwhelming arousal that follows is so strong that she almost drops the Styrofoam container she’s holding.
“Alex!” Kara hisses, as if someone could be listening to them. And, Lena admits with some guilt, someone is.
“I’m just saying! Ask her out, already.”
“Are you kidding?” Kara says, and her voice quiets. She sounds earnest, all of a sudden, in a way that she didn’t when Alex was just teasing her. “Look, I’ve thought about it, but she’s a beautiful, classy businesswoman from the city. She’d want nothing to do with me.”
“Kara, you’re an idiot,” Alex says matter-of-factly.
“Hey! Why this time?”
Before Alex can reply, the garage doors open and James’ voice comes booming in, and Lena exhales the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.
Kara likes her. Kara might ask her out.
And, despite the fleeting nature of anything that could emerge between them, Lena…sort of wants her to.
She doesn’t have much time to think about the revelation, because she can hear footsteps coming towards the hallway and she has to quickly pretend that she’s just come in from outside as Alex comes through the door.
“Lena!” Alex says, looking surprised but not unhappy as the door swings shut behind her. “What are you doing here? That Porsche crap out on you again?”
Lena chuckles, trying to sound as normal as possible when she just listened to Alex telling Kara she should sleep with her, and the images still haunt her.
“No, it’s fine. I just came to give Kara lunch.”
Alex’s eyebrows rise, and her grin is far too knowing for Lena’s liking. “Ahh. Well, she’s in the shop, but she’s due for her break if you want to sit in the office with her.”
Kara looks happy to see her, as usual and during lunch she acts mostly normal. But there are a few times, now that she has confirmation that Kara might be interested, that she catches the blonde looking at her with an unreadable expression.