Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a beautiful, little thing in heavy card stock with navy accents. Two stamps adorned the outer envelope and once sliced open, it was apparent that the sender had the courtesy to prepay the postage on the return envelope as well. She’d known immediately what it was, there amongst the usual bills she’d often received. Nobody spent that much on paper for no reason, after all.

She read the invite with curiosity. Its aesthetics were entirely pleasing, soothing, lovely even. She would say that the perfumed paper was a tad over the top if she were asked (nobody would ask, of course), but she couldn’t deny that that kind of personal touch wasn’t intriguing. It was classy and comforting. And the fact that it landed in her mailbox, was even sent to her, was a bit… bold. She was skeptical, of course. These things tended towards obligation over anything else.

“Mrs. Caitlyn Bening and Mrs. Joanne Liu,” she said, letting the names roll of her tongue. She narrowed her eyes. “Liu… Joanne Liu. Marketing. Communications department, senior manager, and… she shakes a bit when I’m reviewing her copy.”

In her other hand, she held a smaller card which she tapped against the counter, thinking.

Lena Luthor (+1)

R.S.V.P
Yes___              No___

She raised an eyebrow at the little addition next to her name. When she was younger and her parents were invited to weddings across the globe, her name was always explicitly written on the invite—at least, the ones she saw. As she got older (and her family dwindled in size either due to death or madness), it was reduced to just her name, and occasionally it was her name and the option of inviting a plus one. But this had a sense of… expectation.

She doubted it was there with any kind of malicious intent. Lena was skeptical but she knew people, after all. She especially tried to know her employees and she had a sneaking suspicion that Joanne was merely trying to give Lena all of the most open, welcoming avenues she could in order that the CEO might even think to attend.

It could be so easy to decline or even ignore. There was a part of Lena that thought that her presence would serve her well in appearing to be a humble, obliging, and fair CEO who cared about her employees, but that was just a small part of her. The larger part of her was downright infatuated with the idea that one of her own employees had even dared to invite her. It meant that, on some level, she’d portrayed herself as approachable enough to send a wedding invite to in good faith. Even if they thought it would never reach her.

Still.

She knew what weddings entailed even if she never planned to have her own. She knew that there was a cost per head regarding dinner and drinks and if she were to RSVP for two and came solo, that would be a complete waste of money for the couple. As much as people liked to assume she thought a banana cost $10, she was well aware of the cost of living. Although she was sure she could buy their entire registry to make up for costing the newlyweds two seats for the price of one, she didn’t feel all too comfortable with that display of wealth. Sure, she could always do it, but that didn’t mean she should.

Sighing, Lena opened her laptop and cross checked her schedule. Her calendar was wide open on the date of the wedding, a Sunday. She frowned. Did she not pay Joanne enough? Nonsense, maybe this date was just significant for the couple involved. Though… maybe she didn’t pay Joanne enough. Lena rubbed at her temples; she was over thinking this. It was just a silly wedding invite; a silly wedding invite, from somebody who wasn’t even director level in her own company—it could be ignored. It could be declined.

Lena went to her home office and uncapped a pen, checked yes, and resealed the card in its return envelope before she could overthink herself out of what she was assuming was a kind gesture. It was months off. She could find a plus one or an excuse for not having one in the time between. Couldn’t she?

-- 

“After your signature here, you’re done for the day, Miss Luthor,” Jess said.

Lena read through the papers, scanning briefly, before she signed like she always did.

“Weekend plans, Jess?” Lena asked.

Jess hummed. “Nothing really,” she said. Then she touched a finger to her chin. “Actually, I lied.”

“Lying, are we?” Lena didn’t even look up from her papers, just flipped one sheet to the next to make sure the clauses weren’t changed somewhere between the 21^st and 22^nd edit of that particular document. Her voice was laced with mirth, however, and Jess heard it clearly. “You’re not obligated to tell me anything. I was just curious. As a person and not your boss.”

“I’m aware, Miss Luthor,” Jess laughed. “Joanne Liu from the Communications Department is getting married in 3 weeks and she’s having a bachelorette party.”

“Oh,” Lena quipped. She finally signed those papers. “Well, hopefully she sits me at your table at the reception.”

A look of surprise passed across Jess’s face for a second and Lena raised an eyebrow. She’d already started formulating a response about how Jess wasn't at all obligated to keep her company at an out of office wedding when Jess began speaking again.

“That’s great you’re going! But unfortunately, I’m going to her party now because I can’t make her wedding,” Jess answered, frowning. “Not that I wouldn’t want to share a table with you, Miss Luthor.”

Lena handed the papers back to Jess.

“My feelings aren’t hurt,” Lena smirked. “I might just come without a guest. Do you think overcompensating with a truly expensive wedding gift makes up for the empty seat?”

“I’m sure Joannie would forgive you, even without the first and second most expensive gifts in her registry,” Jess said. “You could probably make a typical appearance, say a few hellos, and then leave and she’d be fine with it.”

“Ah, a big wedding,” Lena said, thoughtfully. She leaned back into her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “I thought so.”

Jess shifted her weight from foot to foot. “It won’t be a newsworthy gala by any means. Joannie’s family is small and Caitlyn’s from the East Coast, so…”

“I’m,” Lena hesitated. “Surprised, then. That I was even invited.”

“More than just reporters know how hard you work for the company, Miss Luthor,” Jess answered with a soft look. “Speaking of… how about Miss Danvers?”

“What about her?”

“Your guest? To Joanne’s wedding?”

Lena answered Jess with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, it’s not that strange. You’re friends, right? Plus, Caitlyn would die if they had a wedding announcement in CatCo Magazine. Just a thought.”

Lena pondered that for a moment. Jess brought up very valid points and Kara had taken to bringing her lunch and making sure she ate it during her particularly busy work days. Surely, they could make conversation through a wedding reception together. Wedding announcements in CatCo Magazine were usually reserved for the particularly popular or wealthy (usually both), but it wasn’t uncommon for a periphery friend of a friend to land a coveted spot in the publication.

“Don’t normal people usually bring their significant others to these types of invites?” Lena asked, already halfway to her cellphone. Jess took it as her queue that this conversation was wrapping up, so she spun on her heel.

“Who’d’ve thought Lena Luthor would ever imply that she was normal,” Jess said good naturedly before she left Lena for the night. Lena’s low chuckle followed her out the door.

--

“Hi! I’m glad you texted me,” Kara greeted, smiling wide and leaning in to pull Lena into a brief hug, just barely there, but full of good intent. “I thought you were busy and I didn’t want to bother you, so you know.”

Lena smiled at the nervous sentence spilt out of Kara’s mouth as they sat at their table.

“To be fair, I have ulterior motives I feel I should be upfront about,” she said, still smiling. A beat passed where Lena held her breath, always unsure if she was being too on the nose. But Kara’s smile widened impossibly and she leaned in conspiratorially.

“I’m well known for being easily bribed by food,” she said. She tilted her head to one side, remembering something. “Actually, that’s usually what I say in interviews when they ask me what my biggest weakness is.”

Lena made a face. “I’ll give you points for creativity.”

“I have a real answer, too!” Kara said, indignantly. She pouted. “The first one is for a laugh.”

“And is laughing how you got Cat Grant to hire you?”

“That and my undeniable charm,” Kara said.

“Perhaps you need brushing up on your interview etiquette,” Lena teased.

A waiter interrupted them for drink orders and they spent entirely too much time to decide exactly what to order (and how much). It was nice to recount their day in such a casual fashion, no pretense of anything except careful interest in one another. It was easy, as things so often weren’t in both of their lives. Food was served and eaten with much enthusiasm on one party’s part (not that Lena didn’t enjoy food—Kara’s enthusiasm just couldn’t be matched) and time passed so… normally.

“Now that I’m thoroughly sedated,” Kara said, patting herself, her plate cleaned off in front of her. “What was that ulterior motive of yours?”

“I need to bring a guest to an event,” Lena said, purposefully vague. “And I was wondering if you’d be that guest.”

“Like a conference? Sure!” Kara smiled. She leaned forward in her seat and propped her chin in her hand, scrunching up her face, teasing. “You don’t have to be so sneaky about it, Lena.”

“It’s… not quite a conference,” Lena said. She chewed her bottom lip, slid her gaze to the side as if contemplating to forget the whole thing, then snapped her eyes back to Kara. “It’s a wedding. Of one of my employees.”

Kara’s eyes widen in delight.

“What?! I love weddings! Why would you be at all nervous to ask me to be your guest, I’m so excited already,” Kara exclaimed. “Do they have a color theme? Is it traditional? Where’s their registry? It’s not a destination wedding, is it?”

Lena laughed, surprised by Kara’s exuberance, her earlier hesitation and pretense for fret forgotten. Of course Kara loved weddings. Kara liked everything that had anything to do with what was good in this world, a fact which Lena used to measure their friendship against when she was feeling particularly self-deprecating.

“No, we wouldn’t be going very far—it’s in wine country up north. A few hours drive if that’s okay with you?” Lena paused, smiling at Kara’s rapidly nodding head. “It’s kind of a funny story, actually.”

“It’s not some big, bad board member you hate, is it?” Kara huffed. “Not! Not that I wouldn’t be totally okay with accompanying you to something you’re dreading. I meant like—you know—is it one of those things you have to do or have to do?”

“No, nothing like that, for once,” she supplied, still smiling. “A woman on the communications team—she’s been with L-Corp since before the rebranding.”

That caused her to pause, to see if Kara would ask any further questions, but she didn’t. She just smiled and waited for Lena to continue.

“I’ve heard it’s a small wedding, up in Solvang, which I didn’t know before I’d already sent in the RSVP. I don’t think she expected that I would attend, or that the invitation would even reach me,” Lena admitted, trailing off.

“People enjoy working for you, Lena,” Kara told her softly.

“So you’ll come?” Lena asked, only just a little fishing, and only just a little dodging.

“Of course!”

Something sappy played through the speakers of the restaurant, something slow and warm and heavy. It wasn’t until later that she remembered the tune and the way Kara’s hand rested atop her own.

--

“Antsy?”

“Only a little.”

“I have to ask… were you in a car accident when you were younger?”

“What?” Kara turned toward Lena fully, then.

“You take the bus a lot.” Lena ignored the way Kara slid her glance to the side at that. “You haven’t stopped bouncing your leg, either. Not that it bothers me. You could tell me you don’t drive and I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest.”

Kara’s leg stopped bouncing. She could hear the car tires against the pavement like ripping Velcro apart and every individual piston could sound like a firework if she let it. Kara smelled burning metal and resin every time the hired driver tapped the brake pedal and if she was really too in the moment, she could hear how much gas was left in the tank or count the engine’s revolutions per minute. She hated being a passenger in a car, but she wasn’t about to tell Lena that it was because she felt and heard everything with an… inhuman sensitivity.

“Oh no,” she said, smiling. “I mean, I’ve been in a car accident.” That wasn’t quite a lie. Alex had rear ended someone on accident when she was in the car, just once. “In college; nothing serious.” Everyone’s been in mild car accident, right? “Being in a car is strange if I’m not driving.”

“You could’ve told me,” Lena frowned.

“It’s okay,” Kara reassured her, patting Lena’s knee. “Honestly, I’m just glad to get to go to a wedding.”

Alex was surprisingly okay with Kara taking off for the weekend. The city had been quiet and not in an eye-of-the-storm kind of way. The wedding was on a Sunday evening and Lena had informed Kara that she had rented two rooms for them in Solvang but would drive up Sunday morning. It worked out perfectly—crime rates on Sundays (on average) tended to be less than Saturdays and since Saturday seemed quiet, Alex had merely shrugged her shoulder and said sure.

Kara found herself being suspiciously vague when she asked for the day off. It wasn’t on purpose… at least consciously. When Alex needled her about it, Kara admitted that Lena had invited her to a wedding and Alex got this blank look on her face before a comfortable, almost knowing smile graced her lips. She ended up waving Kara off, telling her to have fun in the sun, and reminding her not to do anything stupid or reckless. Which was funny, because it was just a wedding and Kara couldn’t even get drunk.  

“Don’t forget to catch the bouquet!” Winn called as she flew out of the DEO.

The drive took just under 4 hours, the first bit of it marred with traffic before they merged with 101. After their brief discussion (Lena asking Kara twice if she was sure she was okay), Lena had opened her laptop and was able to get a few emails out of the way in preparation for her half day on Monday. Kara put on over-the-ear headphones and dozed, trying not to aggravate Lena with her anxiety about being in a two-ton metal box hurtling up the coast at nearly 90 miles an hour.

Just past Ventura, Kara slid her headphones off and looked out towards the ocean as Highway 101 followed the Pacific Coast Highway along the south-facing beach. She closed her eyes and tuned her hearing, imagined the process like she remembered Jeremiah tuning an old radio in his garage when she was younger. Past the pavement and the tires, past the pistons, past Lena’s heartbeat and the driver tapping his thumbs against the steering wheel to the radio, past the lanes surrounding them, until finally to the ocean’s waves. It was early spring, the tail end of the whale migration, but she could hear them—the strange, almost metallic vocalization of Minke whales. 

In Santa Barbara, Kara looked over to Lena and found that it was the other woman’s time to doze. The driver pulled off of 101 and carefully navigated State Route 154. It was incredibly steep and serpentine but Lena’s driver handled it expertly and Kara took in the views as they climbed up the coast range. Though there were less cars on 154, their engine worked harder to climb the grade and it was so, so noisy. Kara was at that point in her playlist where adding more noise just set her teeth on edge and she didn’t want to bother Lena and wake her up with just half an hour to go. She leaned forward against her knees and squeezed her eyes shut and focused.

Into the scraping sound of pavement and tires, into the pistons exploding and churning, into the soft breeze of the air conditioner, into the back seat, straight into her own heart, just to feel solid, real. She did this sometimes because part of her was always that 13-year-old Kryptonian girl newly crash-landed on Earth. 24 years in an endless, blank dream and anybody would question whether or not their sudden burst of color and noise and world was real or a figment of their own, desperate imagination. So she made sure that her heart was still there, still beating, still pumping, like hearing it made everything real, validated, whole. She squeezed her eyes closed tighter, trying to drown out all of it, but another, softer, quicker lub-dub wormed its way into her ear. Kara tilted, trying to get away from it, trying to focus, but then she realized that it was Lena.

She let the sound wash over her without really thinking about it. Suddenly it wasn’t her own heartbeat she was listening to and just the sound of Lena, the soft rush of blood flowing from chamber to chamber, the steady reality of being. Through ignoring the dangers of vehicular operation, Kara had one thought. Maybe if everyone could hear the softness of Lena Luthor, they would be less inclined to write her off as they did.

“Kara, are you alright?”

Kara nearly yelped when she felt a soft, warm palm on her back. She hadn’t realized that the car had slowed to a stop or that Lena had no longer been dozing. She adjusted her glasses and sat up quickly, painting on a typical Kara Danvers smile.

“Just a little car sick,” she said. There was a slight movement in Lena’s eyes, a miniscule narrowing, the briefest moment of doubt. It passed, but Kara wanted to reassure her. “The 154 has too many switchbacks.”

Believable. If somebody asked, Kara would be indignant that she was a good liar. But she knew she wasn’t, not really, and most of that was because she hated lying to important people in her life. Perhaps naively, she categorized all of these little un-truths she told Lena as believable deflections. The term carsick was just an oversimplification of alien-related sensory overload, after all.

The driver opened the door for them and Kara waved him off when he moved toward the trunk as Lena went inside to check them in. The Landsby was… well it was Lena’s aesthetic, Kara thought. It wasn’t quite as quaint as the other lodging options in the small, Danish-inspired town tucked into the mountains of the central coast of California, but it was still remarkably charming. The white and black building was softened by classic clay shingles and made inviting by its Scandinavian design.

She picked their luggage up and out of the trunk a little too easily, giving the bellhop a start when he moved to take them from her. She smiled at him, flexed her arm, and patted her bicep solidly. Sometimes it was nice to go places where nobody knew who she was: Supergirl, CatCo Reporter, or otherwise. To him, she was just another guest and she could be a weight-lifter or a semi-professional athlete for all he cared, even in her collared shirt and cardigan combos. The thought of that made her laugh quietly to herself and that’s how she met Lena in the lobby.

“What’s so funny?”

“I thought about something dumb,” Kara admitted as Lena handed her a room key. She frowned and tried to deflect. “Did you already put your card down?”

Lena waved her hand errantly. “We’ll have none of that, thank you.”

“But Lena—”

“But nothing, Kara,” she said, effectively ending the conversation as she walked with the bellhop to their rooms. Kara had a sneaking suspicion that Lena had turned away so quickly so she wouldn’t have to see Kara pout.

Before they left, Lena told Kara that she would make arrangements for one night’s stay and Kara relented only if Lena promised not to go all out on something they were going to spend just a few hours awake in. Lena’s generosity and bank account had a way of showing off in tandem, so Kara let out a sigh of relief when she opened to the door to her suite and found that it was a classic Queen set-up and not something more expensive or extravagant. Conveniently, their rooms were right next to each other, though perhaps not entirely coincidental.

The bellhop deposited their luggage appropriately and when Kara made moves toward her wallet, Lena beat her to the punch and slipped him what looked like a $50 bill. Show off. But they both thanked him warmly anyway and off he went.

“Did I do okay?”

“What?” Kara barked out an awkward laugh, nervous.

“Your room?” Lena clarified, one eyebrow raised.

Kara turned, slightly confused, and then remembered. “Oh! Oh yea, it’s fine. If anything, it’s still too big.”

“Well I didn’t want you thinking I just threw money at things.” Lena spun on her heel to walk back into her room. “We have a few hours before we should head to the venue—and I may not have splurged on your room, but I did get one with a balcony for myself. Are you busy or…?”

“Not to throw money at things but… can we get room service?” Kara beamed. “After I unpack, though?”

“I’ll order and you can get unpacked.”

Lena’s laugh was so distracting, before Kara knew it she’d super-sped through her unpacking and had to sit for a few minutes to calm down and remember to act like a normal human girl.

--

Room service turned into charcuterie and a bottle of wine and a glass of Japanese whiskey on Lena’s balcony. Central coast sun warmed Kara’s skin in such a relaxed way, she didn’t mind sitting in the only unshaded spot on the entire balcony. Lena, on the other hand, wore a sunhat and oversized sunglasses and sat in the shadows.

“I know it’s only a day, but this feels like vacation,” Kara said happily, eyes closed against the sun.

She heard Lena hum in agreement followed by the light bump of ice against the glass of Lena’s tumbler.

“I could almost fall asleep,” Lena replied.

“But! But then I’d feel bad about waking you up and we’d miss the whole wedding!”

“You are very enthusiastic about this wedding.” Lena stirred, sat up, and sipped her whiskey. “And you only know one other person at this event.”

“I just love weddings!” Kara smiled, her eyes crinkling in their corners. It was almost contagious. Almost.

“How many have you been to?”

“Oh. Uhm.” Kara looked down, frowning, like she was remembering something. Something bad. “Just one really, when I was a kid. Before Jerem—Alex’s dad di-died. Passed. It was a lot of fun though. At least, what I remember. Then, of course you know, I watch a lot of movies. So.” A smile returned to Kara’s face, her eyes squinting, and Lena thought that maybe it was because Kara’s upturned lips was all that made up that smile. “What’s not to like about ‘em? How many have you been to?”

Lena barked out a laugh, incredulous. “I wish I shared your enthusiasm. Perhaps I’ve been jaded by the weddings I was dragged to by familial obligation and business opportunity.”

“Really? You never had fun at any of them?”

Lena pursed her lips, thinking. “Well… there was one.” She paused, remembering, suddenly and vividly and nostalgic. “Lex—he—my mother dragged my brother out of college for one.” Lena finished the rest of her whiskey in one go and glanced down at the ice left to melt in her glass. “Old family friend of my father’s I think. I can’t really remember. But he came and I was a teenager then. It was a huge wedding. I think there were reporters and a news crew, it was entirely overdone. But there were so many people and our parents weren’t looking after us. Or after me, I guess. I was always Lillian’s worry. Anyway, he kept sneaking me drinks. For fun, nothing malicious, but that was the first and only time I was ever drunk with my brother.”

She sat the glass on the table next to her and chanced a glance at Kara, who had the softest look on her face, no judgement about Lena’s honesty and the fumbling, messy way she spoke about her brother. It encouraged her to continue, to spill the anecdote that was rising in her memory like waves on a shore.

“I was just his kid sister and he was just a college student and that’s how I remember it. He’d take two from every bartender and pass me one so quickly, half of it would spill on my dress.” She laughed at the memory, the way Lex would wink at the bartenders, thank them for saving him a trip back in line, and then practically shove the glass into her hand. Jack and coke—that’s what she remembered. Was it that moment that colored her drink choices for the rest of her life? “And then he dragged me onto the dancefloor, even though I didn’t dance. And still can’t. I think I must have stepped on his feet two dozen times. Honestly, I don’t remember much of the ceremony or the food or the couple. But I remember racing him down a hill outside of the reception hall and tripping over my dress and the scolding we got from our mother afterward.”

“That’s a really good memory,” Kara said softly, tone to match her look. Somewhere between Lena starting and stopping, she’d sat forward and propped her chin in her hand, listening intently. “He sounds like he was a really good brother to you.”

And Lena wanted to hesitate at that, the carefully chosen words, the specificity, but it was true. He was (past tense) a good brother to her and just her (past tense, past tense). She sighed.

“I was just his kid sister and he was just a college student,” she echoed. “The memories I have of us as just that and not… Luthors, our last name, our legacy, our madness—those memories are few and far between, but they’re the fondest I have of growing up.”

Lena leaned forward to pour herself a generous glass of wine. Kara never even bat an eyelash as Lena downed a third of the pour in one sip. Kara played with the rim of her own glass.

“You know—I think—well…” Kara chewed her lip, trying to find words. “It’s okay to hold onto those memories. To cherish them, too. I’m not trying to be patronizing but… I don’t think—maybe people haven’t told you that before.”

“I didn’t mean for this to turn into a Lena Luthor Pity Party,” Lena said, apologetic. But Kara smiled at her.

“I don’t mind,” she said, bouncing a bit. There was a falter, a small one, before Kara’s smile brightened, real and full. “You can talk to me, about him, you know. If you feel like you’re forgetting. Sometimes it’s hard to remember if you feel like you can’t talk about it.”

“Do you speak from experience, Kara Danvers?” Lena would say that she never meant to do it when she did it; just that she couldn’t help it. There was a line to be toed over and Lena guessed that the line existed, but she didn’t know, exactly, where it was. But still. If Kara was going to be there for her, then, well—mutual support was an integral part of friendship, was it not? Hypothetically, anyway. The line, not the friendship, she supposed.

“Maybe, Lena Luthor,” Kara smiled. It was enough, because Kara was so accommodating and Lena could learn to be accommodating, too. A question pushed itself to the tip of Lena’s tongue and all she had to do was part her lips and ask, but it was enough, now. If Lena pushed it, perhaps Kara would answer honestly. But that was for another time, or maybe—if she were so unlucky—another life. Just like that, Lena raised her glass to her lips and realized, somehow, she’d finished it.

“Oh.” She sighed, looking at the empty glasses both in her hand and on the table by her chair, the latter collecting condensation, dripping. She frowned. “I’ll be tipsy when I stand.”

--

“Kara, are you ready?”

There was a muffled sort of muttering and then the door to Kara’s room swung open and she waved Lena in. She was not, as it turned out, ready. Her hair was done, half-up half-down in a way that Lena had seen many times (the one with soft curls and side-swept bangs), and her make-up was applied, but she was in a pair of linen shorts and her collared chambray shirt was half buttoned, like Kara got distracted between removing it and just never finished her task.

“I’m having trouble,” Kara said, turning toward her bed where 4 different outfits were laid out.

“In general or just right now?” Lena teased. Kara rolled her eyes, smiling despite herself. “I was wondering why you packed so much for one night.”

“I like to be prepared, okay?” Kara huffed and stopped short of stomping her foot. She scratched at her collarbone, thinking. “I didn’t want to be too over-dressed but then I didn’t want to be too under-dressed and I didn’t know if maybe you wanted me to wear pants and—oh.”

Lena tilted her head, watching as pink tinged the skin of Kara’s neck suddenly, realizing her friend was blushing because she’d only then just turned to look at Lena. And if Lena smirked a little bit, could anybody who’d ever rendered another person speechless really blame her? She was human, after all.

“Earth to Kara Danvers.”

“Kara Danvers, here,” she mumbled, then seemed to come back to herself, laughing a little too high, a little too loud. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. You’re just—really—I’m—Lena, you’re gorgeous.”

There was so much raw admiration in Kara’s voice; it was Lena’s turn to blush.

“I’m sorry,” Kara said again, adjusting her glasses. “I’ve just never seen you in this color before.”

It was outside of her usual color palette, that was true. Warm, spring weddings begot light, floral colors, and the invitation had said think summer casual; Lena would be damned if she showed up to her employee’s wedding as a stuck up, over-dressed, CEO (even if that’s what she tended to be). So, she’d opted for a modest, full skirt dress in lavender with a small floral pattern. She thought it on the conservative side, but hoped to go for a more approachable look than her typical wardrobe allowed.

“You should wear brighter colors more often,” Kara breathed, before her eyes snapped to neutral and her gaping reduced to a smile.

“Stark contrast with my complexion makes me a bit more formidable in the board room,” Lena supplied. She looked towards the outfits and tried to focus her mind on the task at hand, clearing her throat to get Kara to focus as well. “I won’t make you wear pants, though I’m sure you look handsome in this.” She pointed towards the far-left outfit and mentally checked that off. “This one is a bit too formal. I think you should go with the yellow sundress.”

“That’s my least dress-y one though, will that be okay?” Kara seemed genuinely nervous and adjusted her glasses accordingly. She scratched at the back of her neck, the collar of her shirt falling open even more. “Maybe I should wear the pants…”

“Kara, you could show up in a burlap sack and you would look fine. But I’m absolutely suggesting the yellow one and I don’t take fondly to being ignored,” Lena said. It was selfish but she wasn’t about to let Kara know that. She said Kara would have been handsome in that pants and shirt combo, and that was enough unsubtle flirting for her liquor-addled brain. They were supposed to leave the hotel a couple minutes ago so Lena figured she could afford to be a little pushy. It did its job because Kara relented and took the yellow dress with her to the bathroom, grumbling good-naturedly about Lena Bossypants Luthor.

Lena slipped her heels on and waited awkwardly for Kara to finish dressing. When Kara finally stepped out, she was barefoot and so, so pretty and Lena was surprised to find herself the taller one. Kara noticed it too because her eyes widened just a little and Lena saw her gaze flick down and saw the almost thoughtful, but mostly girlish wiggle of Kara’s toes against the hardwood floor.

“How about a change of pace?” And then she skipped over to the closet where she had unpacked her (entirely too over-prepared) luggage and pulled out a pair of sensible flats to step into. Lena’s only thought was that it wasn’t even summer yet, but the season looked so good on Kara Danvers. Lena smiled, pleased at the half-surprised look on Kara’s face as she linked arms and guided them out of the hotel and toward their waiting driver.

--

The wedding was… small. Smaller than Lena had anticipated, anyway. She and Kara were clearly the odd ones out, but a woman quickly came up to them during the cocktail hour before the ceremony and introduced herself as Joanne’s mother.

“It’s a pleasure, Mrs. Liu,” Lena said, trying to remember to keep her warmest smile on, that she wasn’t at a gala and these weren’t people who needed money or favors from her. “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve brought my friend, Kara Danvers?”

“Oh! The CatCo darling who sent us copies of the issue with their wedding announcement!”

Lena hadn’t known Kara did this. When asked, Lena insisted that Kara didn’t have to purchase anything on the wedding registry and Lena would take care of it. She’d mentioned Jess’s suggestion off-handedly, never meaning to pry about it unless Kara wanted more details, but she’d never asked and Lena had honestly forgotten, especially since she thought it was too close to print by the time she’d actually asked Kara to come with her.

“Hi, Jean! Oh, it’s so nice to meet you!”

In the past, when Lena was obligated to show up at events and galas and parties where people postured at one another, she found herself being sidelined, ignored for whoever stood next to her (date or otherwise). This did not feel like that. This was easy: watching Kara share a warm smile with Jean about the announcement’s print and publication. This was comfortable. Lena didn’t feel like she had to wait her turn to butt in with one of her own accomplishments. She felt… she felt almost proud, in a small sort of way.

“I’m really just so happy to be here,” Kara said, her hand brushing casually down Lena’s arm before dropping. “Lena was nice enough to invite me, so.”

“Yes, yes, Miss Luthor, I swear—when my daughter got your response she was ecstatic. Honey, you’re so sweet to make it all the way out here,” Jean smiled and Lena tried not to act surprised before the overly enthusiastic mother of the bride was whisked away to greet more relatives and friends of friends.

“I didn’t know you did that,” Lena said, once Jean had left. They walked over to the bar where the couple had two signature cocktails (the Caitlyn, a twist on an Old Fashioned, and the Joanne, a loose interpretation of a Moscow Mule) and a selection of wines and beers.

“It was no big deal,” Kara said, dismissive. She eyed the signature cocktails. “This is so cool! Do most people do this?”

“All of the weddings I’ve been to have been fairly traditional,” Lena admitted. It wasn’t always lost on her, the quick way that Kara deflected when she was about to be praised. It was curious and familiar in a certain way. Lena let it slide. “Or flamboyantly expensive—open bar and anything you could want at it, too.”

Lena decided to stick with whiskey and ordered the Caitlyn while Kara ventured for the Joanne.

“Can I try?” Kara asked, once they’d been served. Lena squinted at her.

“I thought you didn’t drink?”

“I mean, it doesn’t really af—do—I’ve never really had anything that I really like?” Kara fumbled through her words, adjusting her glasses and ducking her head to take a sip from her copper cup. “I mean Alex drinks and I enjoy a glass of wine every now and then, so… I could always order another one later! If you don’t want to share. Not that you have to!”

“Relax. Here,” Lena said, handing over the tumbler. “Although, I rather like the idea of tipsy Kara Danvers.”

Kara almost choked on her sip, managed to swallow past the whiskey and hints of rosemary, and coughed discretely to the side. It was good, but she liked the one she’d ordered better.

“I think new traditions are so neat,” Kara said, deflecting again once she’d handed Lena her glass back. They walked over to the seating, choosing an unobtrusive spot towards the back. The vineyard had set up a tent for the ceremony, but the tables for the reception and the dance floor were in a building nearby, the entirety of its front façade open like a garage. A light breeze flitted through the grounds. “There’s all sorts of new ways for couples to make their ceremony their own, I guess.”

Kara smiled, eyes closed again. Guests started populating the seats in front of them, continuing to exchange greetings and laughter and stories from years past. Kara looked like she was listening. Lena had no doubt that she was. What could she hear beyond the excited squeals of reunion? Did she eavesdrop on the conversations or the windchimes at the barn, down by the driveway? Sometimes Lena found herself wanting to know the answers to the other side of Kara, the nonsensical ghosts of maybes and speculation. But only sometimes.

Someone came up to the microphone to say that they’d be starting the ceremony soon and Kara bounced happily in her seat. Truthfully, she’d only half-paid attention to the ceremony Jeremiah and Eliza brought her and Alex to when she was younger. It was long. And boring. And the movies always skipped over the part of the ceremony, so Kara was genuinely curious and excited.

The officiant was a friend of the couple. They said as much during their humorous introduction. It was open and honest, sprinkled with a little self-deprecation but swathed in warmth. The audience laughed; Kara’s giggle fluttered in Lena’s ear; Lena’s smile caught in the peripheral of Kara’s gaze. Music started (something soft and familiar) and the officiant gestured toward the back and Kara hesitated (just a moment) because she wanted to see. She wanted to see what it would be like in some other time, in some other life, if all eyes had turned toward her and Lena. But then Lena laughed breathlessly, and the spell was broken, and Jean Liu was adorably shuffling her way down the aisle.

When the music changed after the wedding party’s procession, everyone stood, but Kara—caught up in the moment—missed the cue in confusion. Gently, Lena tugged on her elbow, getting her to stand as well, and then she understood.

Joanne, handsome in a navy suit, walked down the aisle with a man who must have been her father. People (perhaps Kara included) were already sniffling as Joanne and her father reached the end of the aisle. They paused, he with his hands on her shoulders, looking so proud, and she with the biggest smile on her face. Suddenly, probably unscripted, Joanne’s father pulled her into a strong hug and whispered something to her that only Kara could hear. Kara wondered if all fathers across all universes whispered to their daughters like that at the end of aisles, at the start of all things new, yet the same.

The music changed once more as Joanne’s father stepped down and joined Jean. A young girl with a small basket practically sprinted down the aisle, haphazardly throwing a flurry of petals in the air as she went. Everyone laughed, wet and happy and full and then Caitlyn was walking down the aisle in a khaki linen suit accompanied by a man in a grey suit. They shared a startling amount of facial features and a guest in front of Lena whispered to his friend that that was Caitlyn’s brother. At the end of the aisle, Caitlyn’s brother kissed her cheek. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes were wet and Caitlyn laughed at him a little bit before she pinched his cheek.

Lena tried not to think about Lex.

Chairs shuffled as the music faded and guests took their seats. A smattering of sniffles popcorned about as the officiant—somewhat nervously—gathered their papers and began the ceremony. It was lovely. It was anecdotal and personal and funny and then, suddenly, it was heavy and powerful and gut wrenching. They talked about the couple as a friend, an outsider, and then brought in the general concept of love and a basic understanding of what it means to love someone; they concluded with a wrap up on found family and the decision to love, the choice to love day after day, change after change.

It was such an intimate thing, Lena thought, to be in the presence of all those people with all of that genuine display of affection—a trio of friends sang a mash up of the couple’s favorite songs to a guitar and box drum. Kara hummed all the melodies with them under her breath, and then, suddenly, as if everyone had the same thought, guests started joining in with the choruses that they knew. A few neatly woven, quick raps later, and everyone—including the photographer—was wrapped up in laughter. Kara snorted through her nose, her hand on Lena’s shoulder, trying to steady herself, almost (but in the end failing from) stifling her laughter.

All that laughter gave way to bright, albeit happy tears at the next speaker, a woman who’d known the brides for years, and who recited a poem she felt relevant to the occasion. It was all in the spirit of found family and that knocked about something in Kara’s chest. Something to think about, later, if ever she got the chance.

And if there were dry eyes before the vows, they were obliterated into torrents after.

--

“Grandma said you’re the boss lady and I gotta be nice to you.”

Lena blinked down at the flower girl. The flower girl that she was, presumably, obligated to sit next to for the entirety of dinner. She smiled and leaned toward the girl, conspiratorially.

“I am the boss lady,” Lena whispered. She tilted her head thoughtfully, more exaggerated than if she were talking to another adult. “But that doesn’t mean you have to be nice to me, you know.”

“But Grandma said I gotta be nice to you so maybe you give Auntie Joannie a raise.”

Someone on the other side of the little girl whispered, shocked. “Carla!” Lena laughed it off and the little girl—Carla—continued to stare at her.

“My name is Lena,” she said, extending her hand to Carla, wondering if she’d shake it. Carla looked at her a moment, then looked at her hand. Lena was surprised by the very firm grip and single shake as Carla nodded.

“I’m Carla. I was the flower girl,” she said. “Does the L in L Corp stand for Lena?”

Lena actually laughed out loud at that.

“You know, you’re the first person to ask me that, actually. It doesn’t, but do you think it should?”

Carla looked pensive for a moment.

“You’re the boss lady. You can do whatever you want. I think it should. Lena is a pretty name,” she said, like a declaration. This little girl was very serious.

“Lena is a pretty name! Hi there,” Kara said, sitting in her seat and placing a drink she’d gotten from the bar in front of Lena. “I loved the way you threw the flowers.”

“Thanks, I’m Carla,” Carla said, sticking her hand out the way Lena did. Lena leaned back to see the surprised look on Kara’s face before she smiled cheerily and shook Carla’s hand.

“Carla is a pretty name! Almost like mine—I’m Kara,” she said.

“Are you Miss Lena’s wife?” Carla asked. She leaned to one side as if trying to check Kara’s other hand. “Girlfriend?”

The high, forced laugh that came out of Kara’s mouth was the exact opposite of charming and composed and all Lena could do was not bark out an ugly laugh herself. She thought about saving Kara but Carla had this expectant look on her face, her eyes narrowed just slightly. Very serious little girl indeed.

“Oh, we—no, we’re just friends,” Kara finally said after her laugh had gone on a little too long.

“Okay.” Carla shrugged, completely unbothered by this turn of events. “Can I see your glasses?”

“M-my glasses?” Kara’s hands immediately went up to her frames to adjust them. “Oh, but—uhm. I need them to see?”

“Just for a minute, please. My mom said I might have to get glasses because she wears glasses and so does daddy. But they have old people glasses,” Carla said, making a face. “I like yours, though. Can I try them on, please?”

Lena picked out her sunglasses from her clutch, finger tracing against the frame for a second. She turned toward Kara and instead of toeing the line teasingly, as she often did, she ignored it completely. Or sprinted across it. The metaphor in this situation was a bit shoddy, all thanks to a 9-year-old girl, who was still looking at Kara expectantly.

“Here, put these on,” Lena said quietly, handing over the glasses to Kara. Kara’s throat bobbed, but she took the sunglasses in her hand and closed her eyes as she pulled her frames away from her face.

There was no rip in the space time continuum but maybe it did shift something a little bit, to even just slightly acknowledge the knowing-but-not-knowing. Kara could be good at this, Lena thought, if everyone didn’t make her so nervous, if she was a better liar. But she wasn’t and Lena didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse.

Kara handed the frames to Carla who put them on her face immediately.

“I don’t see a difference,” she said, frowning. She looked around a bit before settling back on Lena and Kara. “Your glasses are fake.”

“They are not fake!” Kara said, suddenly (amusingly) indignant. “I need them to see!”

The glasses slipped a little bit down Carla’s nose and she looked pointedly at Kara over the rims of her own glasses. Lena had no doubt that this little girl was going to be able to raise one eyebrow perfectly.

“Auntie Joannie says you’ve met Supergirl,” Carla said, ignoring Kara in favor of Lena. “Is that true?”

“Yep,” Lena answered, popping the syllable a little. She needed Kara to stop fidgeting, except that it was… hilarious. Supergirl’s Identity Outed by 9-Year-Old Flower Girl. Lena had no plans on seeing that headline in the paper anytime soon.

“Is she tall? She looks tall on TV. Is she nice?” Carla sat up, focusing intently on Lena.

Lena chuckled, almost too amused by the situation. She put a finger to her lip, thinking in that exaggerated way people do while talking to children. Kara was wringing the tablecloth between her hands and Lena was almost sure she heard the linen rip.

“She’s just a little taller than me. And yes, she’s very nice,” Lena answered.

“Like she has to be nice because she’s a famous person? Or nice nice?”

“No, like she’s actually, really, genuinely nice,” Lena said, smiling at Carla. She leaned a little bit to one side. “You know, my friend Kara has interviewed Supergirl.”

Kara made a high-pitched noise from the back of her throat that sounded like affirmation. She was blushing furiously.

“You did?!” Carla’s eyes were wide and her hands balled up into fists in pure excitement. “Both of you have met Supergirl?”

“You seem to really like her, Carla,” Lena said.

Carla’s face turned very serious. “I love her.”

Kara let out a gasp before throwing her hands over her mouth.

“She is the best,” Carla continued, ignoring Kara’s outburst. “Miss Lena, can you help me meet Supergirl?”

Lena laughed, light and airy. “Sweetie, I don’t have a direct line to Supergirl. I’m sorry, Carla. I might be the boss lady, but even I’m not that important.”

“That’s not true,” Kara murmured. It was quiet, like an escaped thought—too loud to be contained, but not meant to be heard. It was a conversation for another time.

“Okay, it was a long shot.” Carla slumped forward, adjusted Kara’s frames on her face adorably, and sighed dramatically. “She’s my favorite. Do you think she has, like, a real life and a regular person job?”

“Oh, I’m sure she must,” Lena answered, trying to ignore the incredibly awkward stillness that had over taken Kara. She glanced sideways once, just to make sure Kara hadn’t actually passed out. She hadn’t. She was an alarming shade of red, however. Lena looked back at Carla.

“Really? Why, when she could just be Supergirl all the time?”

“I imagine being a superhero all the time would make it incredibly difficult for people who wanted to be her friend, don’t you think?” Lena picked through her words carefully, both for Carla and Kara. And maybe, also, for herself. “It’s dangerous; to do what they do.”

Because didn’t Lena know it? She was a Luthor, after all, wasn’t she?

“You’re right,” Carla said, using that same declarative tone from earlier. “Maybe she’s a firefighter. Or a lawyer. Maybe she’s an intern at L Corp! Do you think she’s a scientist like you?”

“A firefighter.” Lena blinked, trying to imagine Kara as a firefighter, soot on her nose, hair that didn’t burn. “Maybe. I know that whatever she’s doing, she does it very well.”

“She’s the best at everything,” Carla said, adjusting the glasses on her face again. They were too big for her and kept sliding down her nose when she tried looking about. She took them in her hands and pulled the frames off her face before handing them to Lena. “You try.”

Lena leaned forward and Carla put the frames on her face, pushing at the bridge until they settled. There really was no difference in the glass. If anything, they were a little dirty, blurred at the edges where the center was crystal clear. Lena settled her elbow on the table and propped her chin in her palm, raising an eyebrow at Carla.

“How does it look?”

Carla’s unexpected reaction was a scowl accompanied with a resigned sigh.

“Miss Kara looks the best in her own glasses,” she said with finality. “No offense, Miss Lena.”

“Oh well, I’ll stick to contacts, then,” Lena said, laughing as she turned to Kara. “Trade?”

Kara’s demeanor was—thankfully—more normal than being frozen stiff. There was still pink on her cheeks and the table cloth was still wound in her fists, but her lips held a soft, tentative smile. Lena took Kara’s frames off her face and held them out expectantly, but Kara touched the rim of her sunglasses first. There was a moment—a moment where Kara worried her bottom lip and then opened her mouth gently as if to say something—but it passed, and Kara slid Lena’s glasses off her face and set them on the table.

Their fingers brushed against one another as Kara reached for her frames. She smiled, then, as she took them out of Lena’s grip, tilting her head a bit the way some people do when they’re apologizing. Kara flipped the glasses in her hands, fiddling with its arms, but not yet putting them on her face. Her mouth was doing that thing where it looked like she wanted to say something, except that she couldn’t or wouldn’t—it was hard to say. In the end, Lena smiled softly in return and carefully put her sunglasses back into her clutch before turning back to Carla.

“So, Carla, how do you feel about Wonder Woman?”

--

“I didn’t know you were so good with kids,” Kara said once dinner was finished and plates were being cleared (their table was the only table that had suspiciously clear serving plates, but that was beside the point). Carla spent most of it shoveling food into her mouth and talking to Lena before she was finished and excused herself to go bother her cousin.

“I’m not, not really,” Lena said. She sipped her drink thoughtfully. “That age is easy. They’re talkative and curious and they’re always a little bit surprised when you engage with them like you would another adult.” She shrugged a shoulder. “But I don’t interact with children much.”

“Well, I’d say you’re pretty good at it,” Kara said. Her smile faded to a pensive slant and that crinkle between her brows formed. Lena’s response was to raise an eyebrow. “I just—obviously you don’t have to answer this if you’re uncomfortable, like, you could just forget I asked but uhm—have you? Would—do you want kids?”

Lena propped elbow on the table, chin in hand. She swirled her drink, absently thinking that maybe she ought to slow down. She hummed as she thought, tried not to glance towards the sweetheart’s table where Caitlyn and Joanne were currently whispering to each other, a fit of giggles stuck in their throats, mirth in their eyes.

“I don’t know,” Lena said, truthfully. “I guess it’s less, do I want kids and more, could someone want me to be their mother.”

“Lena,” Kara started. But Lena glanced at her, a crooked smile on her lips.

“Even if you think I’m a good person, and perhaps I am, there are 7 billion other people on this planet, Kara.” Her eyes slid back toward Caitlyn and Joanne and she tapped her glass with her index finger. “The name Luthor doesn’t exactly make it easy to keep myself safe, let alone a completely vulnerable and innocent child or two.”

“Or two,” Kara echoed, smiling knowingly but sadly, too.

Kara didn’t argue because she understood. She understood parents with good intentions who wanted to give the world (the galaxy, the universe, even) to their children, only to have those children grow up the same as anyone else—with trauma, with regret, with scars. She understood that parents could sacrifice everything for their children, to keep them safe and healthy and alive, and it wouldn’t matter because there was always something else or someone else or someplace else.

Lena looked as if she was going to ask Kara something, but the audio system kicked in and somebody tapped on a microphone. Kara winced at the slight, but sudden feedback. It was the officiant, stating that they were going to give the floor to a select few who were going to make speeches before the “real party” started, and that everyone should get a drink beforehand, lest Caitlyn’s brother bore them all to sleep.

Lena finished her drink suddenly and stood, using her empty glass as an excuse and telling Kara she’d just be at the bar. But Kara watched Lena’s retreating form and heard the slight stutter in her heartbeat. She frowned, slightly, and adjusted her glasses out of habit. She didn’t mean to eavesdrop but… but Lena was just standing at the bar, fiddling with her glass, making no move to flag down a bartender. Technically, Kara wasn’t eavesdropping if there was nothing to listen to.

The audio system whined again and Caitlyn’s brother was at the microphone. He was handsome and tall and shared Caitlyn’s eyes and strong jaw. He smiled and said something funny, something Kara should’ve been paying attention to, but Lena was just standing at the bar. Kara got up and made her way over quietly but quickly, and if she floated just a little, just to make sure her feet made no sound as she walked, well… Carla was preoccupied.

“I always wanted one of those at my wedding,” Kara said, when she was in earshot of Lena. The bar as situated far enough away that conversing wasn’t terribly difficult or rude while Caitlyn’s brother gave his speech. People were chuckling. Jean wiped a tear from her eye.

Lena startled, just a bit. Kara winced at the way Lena’s shoulders jumped; she’d forgotten to put her feet back on the ground in time to make her presence known. But Lena smiled softly and turned, following Kara’s line of sight.

“A chocolate fountain?” Lena laughed. She made a face, scrunching her nose. “Is it terrible that I always just assume those are incredibly unhygienic?”

“You’re probably not wrong,” Kara said. She scuffed the toe of her flats against the floor, gentle enough so as not to leave a mark. A human touch. “It’s probably dirtier with more people, but I never thought I’d have a big wedding anyway.”

Kara turned towards the bartender to flag him down for a water. Lena blinked.

“I find that surprising.”

“What?”

“That you’d expect to have a small wedding,” Lena said. She leaned against the bar.

“Oh.” Kara chewed her lip. She could hear the way Lena’s heartbeat pick up, nervous that she’d said the wrong thing or pried too much. “A little surprising, I guess. But the Danvers don’t really have extended family. Very nuclear.”

The bartender brought Kara a water and another whiskey for Lena.

“And I never really kept up with anybody in high school. I was… I was a really difficult teenager,” she said, scrunching her face.

“Well, you’re remarkably well adjusted; I’ll give you that.”

Kara barked out a laugh. “Takes one to know one, Lena.”

“Oh, I was a very good teenager,” Lena smirked, lying through her teeth but enjoying teasing Kara too much.

“Yea right, I bet you and Alex could swap stories.”

In the distance, Caitlyn’s brother was retelling a story from their childhood. He was gesticulating madly and the guests were laughing so hard, even Caitlyn and Joanne were nearly doubled over. Wind flit across the grounds, the leaves of the vineyard brushed against one another to sound like an ocean breeze. Lena sighed.

“Would Alex?” she said, tilting her head toward Caitlyn’s brother.

“Make a speech? Probably, but she would cry the whole time,” Kara said. She pursed her lips, thoughtful. “I always had a hard time picturing Alex at my wedding. It’s nice to know that new traditions are being made, so I guess she could walk me down the aisle, but then I’d feel bad for Eliza. I think—I think maybe I’d want her to officiate.”

“Not the maid of honor?” Lena asked, voice full of genuine curiosity.

The truth was that Krypton’s marriage ceremony was remarkably different from Earth’s more popular western customs. Even though she knew that bridesmaids were a staple in western ceremonies, Kara could never see herself adding that to what she remembered of Krypton’s ceremony. Trying to reconcile the perfect wedding between Kara Danvers and Kara Zor-El meant compromising between two different worlds. Assuming a compromise could ever be offered to her in the first place. Kara shrugged.

“I never had a lot of friends who are women,” she admitted in lieu of the long-winded worries in her head. “So, I never really imagined a bridal party—and I know it’s like, less important these days to have gendered bridal parties! But I still never really imagined it.”

“So, small ceremony, maybe larger reception?”

“Yea!” Kara grinned. She played with the straw in her glass and waved her free hand as she spoke. “Part of me wants an outdoor thing, but the other part of me knows you can’t control the weather. So maybe some rooftop venue, you know?”

There was clapping, then, as Caitlyn’s brother bowed. Both Kara and Lena turned toward the guests and a few stragglers at the other end of the bar traded spots with the few who got up. When Joanne’s father started to approach the microphone, Kara felt a sudden and profound sense of loss. She put on a smile anyway and turned her attention back to Lena.

“I could make Winn be a ring-bearer. He’d say yes if I asked,” she said. Her smile blossomed a little more when Lena laughed at the image.

“And what would your wedding colors be?” Lena asked.

“Oh, definitely blue and yellow.”

And red, maybe. But sometimes red reminded Kara too much of Krypton.

“Wedding flowers?”

Plumerias, she wanted to say, so that her mother could be there, somehow. Kara shrugged instead. “White heathers probably, but I don’t know much about flowers and their meanings. I just know what’s pretty.”

“Hmm. Season you’d want to be married in?”

“Summer! No wait—spring. No! Fall, definitely fall. But early fall, while it’s probably still warm.”

“Color of your invites?”

“Pale blue envelopes and cream-colored cardstock.”

“Flavor of the cake?”

“Bananas Foster.”

“Kara,” Lena said, laughing. “What would happen if you meet someone who has their own wedding as planned as you do? God forbid they have an enormous extended family. Or a dairy allergy.”

Kara smiled. On the edges of her hearing, she could make out Joanne’s father telling everyone how proud he was of the love that Joanne and Caitlyn had fostered and grown, like a garden carefully tended to. Kara wondered what kind of metaphors her own father could weave, if he had the chance. Did fathers give speeches to their daughter’s ceremonies on Krypton? She couldn’t remember.

“How does that saying go? Something about crossing bridges,” she said, scrunching her face. “What about you? I mean, you know, as far as dream weddings go.”

Lena hummed, glancing at Joanne’s father at the microphone. Kara could see the mask come up, just a little, the slightest guard. It was subtle, but it was there—the way Lena’s expression smoothed and then hardened, just slightly. Just around the edges.

“No real dream, to be honest,” she answered, flippant about it. “Nothing there to really imagine.”

Kara wanted to pry, she did. But she didn’t. Maybe that was a conversation for another time. They were accumulating a lot of those today, it seemed. They were pulled out of their moment by more applause and hearty laughter, Joanne’s father finishing with his speech, as teary eyed as many of the guests. 

Lena surprised Kara a second time that day when she linked their arms and lead them back to their table. And if Kara intertwined their fingers as they walked, well, that could be a conversation for another time, too.

--

“Holy fuck, honey, she is right there.”

“Caitlyn, no!”

“Caitlyn, yes!”

Kara snorted through her nose. Lena turned toward the sound, a confused look on her face before she brightened at the sight over Kara’s shoulder.

“Joanne was trying to stop me from coming over but you’re Lena Luthor and this is my wedding and my wife is a fool if she thinks I’m not going to take advantage of this one chance to meet you without the crowd of your extravagant company holiday party here to stop me,” Caitlyn said in one full breath, turning slightly pink at the end. Joanne groaned, covering her face with one hand.

“I wasn’t—I just—Miss Luthor, I am so sorry, I just didn’t want to bother you.”

“Joanne, please! It’s your wedding.” Lena laughed pleasantly. “And call me Lena, today and every other time you see me in the office. I keep telling Jess she doesn’t have to, but—”

“But Jess is weirdly stubborn and sometimes painfully traditional,” Caitlyn finished, fishing a bit for the right answer. She grimaced suddenly. “I’m sorry; I’ve been drinking and you’re the equivalent of me being a teenager asking a celebrity to prom and that celebrity saying yes.”

Lena quirked an eyebrow at the couple and smirked good naturedly, warmed through from the amount of whiskey she’d consumed that day.

“I’m flattered, truly,” she said, measuring her words and trying to sift through her own surprise. “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve brought my friend, Kara Danvers?”

Kara grinned, her cheeks dimpling.

“You guys look amazing and your wedding has been so wonderful—”

Caitlyn stepped forward suddenly and gathered Kara into a hug. Joanne groaned again and her face turned crimson but her mouth curled into a smile. She leaned incrementally towards Lena and whispered.

“She gets really huggy when she’s drunk.”

“Thank you for the CatCo plug,” Caitlyn said once she’d separated herself from Kara. “I almost had a heart attack when the box of prints arrived.”

“Oh! No, no, please, that was all thanks to Lena. She suggested it and I just emailed Mrs. Liu for details,” Kara said. Caitlyn might have actually teared up as she turned toward Lena.

“I have the best health insurance in my life and my face printed in CatCo Magazine because of you,” Caitlyn said, laughing. “Thank you, Lena Luthor. I don’t know how often you get thanked, but I sincerely hope that it’s often.”

Lena pinked, just a little.

“Our officiant, J, is also a huge fan but they said they might pass out if they came up to you,” Joanne said. “But if you could just give them a smile and wave, Lorin owes me $50 if J passes out.”

“I’ll remember that,” Lena answered, taking a moment to glance about to find them. She winked. “And I’ll try to win you $50.”

The audio system kicked in suddenly; the DJ called for the brides for a bouquet toss. Kara’s face lit up and Joanne laughed at how eager she looked.

“Well, c’mon then,” she said. Lena followed a bit behind as Joanne and Caitlyn walked through the dance floor. Kara turned, realizing that Lena hadn’t been so eager to follow into the crowd of women who’d begun to gather.

“I like your strategy better,” Kara stage whispered as she came back to Lena’s side. Kara grinned. “Out on the fringes where you might not get into a scuffle.”

Lena waved her hand errantly.

“Go! Partake in a truly time-honored tradition of fighting for a maybe and a metaphor,” she said. There was mirth in her eyes, despite her words.  

“But you should come with me!”

Kara held her hand out expectantly. Lena lifted her arm minutely before her hand dropped to her side.

“I’d like to not roll my ankle getting into a tiff with an employee’s aunt, Kara,” she said in lieu of an explanation. She waved her hand at Kara again. “Do it! Go catch it. I’m sure it’s fun.”

Kara fidgeted with her hands for moment but her face broke out into a smile before she bounced away.

“Okay, I’ll be right back!”

Lena watched her angle her body carefully to slide in between a couple cousins and close friends, stopping short of the line that seemed to be single aunts who were comically rolling up non-existent sleeves and looking ready to fight. Carefully, Kara positioned herself so she wouldn’t accidentally knock anybody over simply by being an immovable force. She turned around, wiggling her fingers in Lena’s direction, squinting as she smiled.

It was okay, Lena reminded herself. It was okay to let yourself have fun. It was okay to pretend to be a normal 24-year-old at a wedding with your presumably normal 27-year-old best friend. It's what people their age did. Were doing. 

The bouquet went soaring, arching high over everyone’s heads; some mistimed their jumps too early, crashing into their neighbors and stepping on toes, others were too busy laughing to even take the catch seriously. Someone’s aunt actually yelled. And Kara?

Lena saw Kara’s hand brush the shoulder of the woman in front of her, touched only by her index finger. Without even bending her knees, Kara was in the air, her arm extended. Her hand connected—higher than others by a precise few inches—and she dropped down. She looked surprised and happy, giggling at the aunts who teased her and the cousins who clapped her on the back.

Grinning, Kara waved at Lena. Lena lifted her arm and waved back.

--

“I’m… drunk.”

“Whiskey will do that to you.”

They were on the dancefloor. Something slow played softly through the speakers; the night was winding down as the rowdier guests plowed through inebriation earlier than others and had already left the vineyard. Everyone left was happy and exhausted, holding each other up underneath strings of fairy lights.

“How are you not?”

A beat passed, and then—

“I drank more water than you.”

“Hmm.”

Lena sighed through her nose, warm air ghosting across Kara’s cheek. They were swaying like high school kids: one of Lena’s hands wrapped around Kara’s bicep, the other held lightly in Kara’s. Kara’s other arm was loose across the small of Lena’s back.

“Thank you. For coming with me,” Lena said after a while.

“Thanks for inviting me,” Kara murmured. She squeezed Lena’s hand gently.

“Weddings can be fun.”

“Can I say I told you so?”

Lena huffed and then sighed. She felt so…warm—normal to the point of mundane which was almost extraordinary in and of itself. She checked her phone just 4 times throughout the course of the evening and never had to excuse herself because of some work-related incident. Even Kara had somehow made it through the night without disappearing (or returning windswept and apologetic, slipshod excuse come barreling past her lips).

“Did I already call our driver?” Lena asked.

“Yea.” Kara adjusted her glasses awkwardly against her shoulder, earning her a smile from Lena. Lena lifted her hand and straightened the frames on Kara’s nose. “And then right after I asked if you’d dance with me and here we are. Are you really that drunk?”

“I might be.”

“It’s okay. I’ll hold your hair back.”

Kara smiled. Lena could see the crow’s feet around her eyes.

“This is why I like weddings so much.”

“Why’s that?”

The song faded into something else. More people left the dance floor and headlights flashed as cars pulled up to take guests to their respective hotels. Lena’s phone buzzed.

“People don’t normally leave weddings upset.”

“Our car is here.”

“I know.”

She could hear it before Lena’s phone even went off. Kara let go of Lena’s waist and shyly took both of the other woman’s hands in hers. She stepped back and swung their arms playfully. Lena laughed, pretty and carefree. And then Kara tugged them toward their table to gather their stray things—Lena’s clutch and her bouquet—before hopping into the car and being taken back to the Landsby.

“You know you won Joanne $50?” Kara asked in the car. Lena was looking out of the windows, watching the vineyard disappear. Maybe she was fishing for ways to get Lena to laugh again. It was easier when she was liquor soaked and elated. Maybe she just didn’t like the way the car sounded, even after a pleasant wedding. Kara handed her one of the water bottles in the car.

“I saw Carla fanning them ten minutes later,” Lena chuckled, twisting until the seal broke. Kara watched her throat bob as Lena drank.

The ride was short and the driver let them out and it was only once they were in the elevators that Lena finally took off her heels. She leaned against Kara’s shoulder as if they always did this and linked their arms again as they walked towards their respective doors.

“Don’t forget to drink some more water before you sleep,” Kara said, rummaging for her room key in her wallet. Lena had already—effortlessly despite being inebriated—unlocked and opened her door, holding it ajar, her arm extended. She smiled, looked as though she wanted to say something, but thought better of it.

“Check out is at 9,” Lena settled on. “Good night, Kara.”

“Good night, Lena.”

Kara fell asleep to Lena’s steady heartbeat lulling her even from a room over.

Chapter Text

“Supergirl isn’t an escort.”

“Jesus, Kara, no one’s asking anything like that.”

Lucy strode purposefully ahead of Kara, her footsteps brisk and light on her way to her office at the DEO.

“Well, it sure sounds like it.”

“First of all,” Lucy started. She turned on her heel so abruptly, Kara skidded against the concrete. Lucy tilted her chin to make eye contact. “Escorts get paid. Second of all, you won’t be getting paid, but perhaps your sister will finally get a raise if the DEO can be in this year’s budget’s good graces.”

Kara frowned. She wasn’t a mascot and the symbol on her chest wasn’t a social bartering chip for power plays and favors. It bothered her when these situations came up, few as they may have been. Lucy’s shoulders softened.

“I get it, Kara, really—I do.” She shifted, putting a hand on her hip. “You don’t want to go around making appearances because that’s not what Supergirl is about.”

“Yes—”

“That being said: this isn’t just a regular appearance.”

Kara sighed, frustrated because they were going around in circles.

“You have nothing to lose. Alex and J’onn are more than capable of covering for Supergirl for one night. All you have to do is show up, stay for about an hour, talk to some people, get in a few selfies, and then fly your way back home to do whatever it is you normally do on a Saturday night.”

Catch up on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Kara thought. Sure, this was more exciting than her usual night in.

“It feels—I don’t know; it feels wrong.”

“Kara, what is this really about?”

“It just feels cheap, okay? She’s not a socialite! And she’s not a celebrity—she’s—”

“You,” Lucy said plainly. Kara looked taken aback. “When you’re talking about Supergirl, Kara, there is just you. There is no she. She might be a symbol for some but you are Supergirl. You are that symbol. Is that what this is about?”

Kara deflated, just the tiniest bit.

“It’s—it’s nothing. Nevermind. I’ll go.”

“Good.” Lucy turned. She called over her shoulder as she left. “Besides, Kara Danvers loves weddings.” 

-- 

Kara knocked on Alex’s door with her forehead, arms full of bags of takeout balanced precariously in her grip. She’d nearly put a hole through Alex’s door the last time she tried knocking with her foot.

“Hey.” The door swung open. Alex was smiling as she helped take boxes and bags out of Kara’s grip before placing them on the counter and wrapping her sister up in a hug. Kara melted immediately. Sometimes she was just… done. Tired beyond all belief for just being. Kara squeezed, just a little, just to hold on a little more.

Alex brushed Kara’s hair away from her face when they parted, fingertips ghosting against her forehead.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Why?” Kara looked down at herself. “Do I not look okay?”

Alex knocked her hip into Kara’s on her way to the fridge for a beer.

“I’m just asking,” she said. “You know, being an overbearing, protective big sister and all?”

“Well, you also know,” Kara started. She moved to take plastic containers from their bags, rummaging around for utensils. “Technically, I’m bigger. And also older!”

“Yea, you’re an old lady,” Alex teased. She paused for a moment. Kara never really brought that up so teasingly. She did, occasionally, because it was Kara after all. But it usually meant something else was bothering her. And it was usually either something not entirely human, or too human altogether. “But really, is something up?”

Kara worried her lip, still unpacking her massive meal. Sighing, she took her glasses off and folded the arms of the frames, laying them down carefully on the counter. She laid her hands flat against the countertop, as if she was readying herself for some big speech. But Kara only sighed once more and smiled at Alex, leaving her glasses on the counter, ignored.

“Let’s eat.”

So, Alex let it go because that’s what Kara was asking but not asking. And it wasn’t in that way where Kara was giving her that look that meant ask me once more and I’ll tell you the truth. It wasn’t in that way that Alex had (guiltily) ignored in the past. It wasn’t in the way that Alex was trying to make up for, trying to be a better sister for. But it was still a relief when Kara smiled and ate, because that meant that things were as normal as they were going to get it. At least for now.

Between imitating J’onn and retelling some ridiculous pun Winn had made, Alex and Kara had moved from the counter to the couch, covered in a blanket, something mindless playing in the background. Kara fidgeted with the glass of water in her hand as she listened to her sister talk about her supervisor and some of his less believable and more ridiculous behaviors.

“Okay. I can hear you thinking,” Alex said. Her hand came up and she touched the crinkle between Kara’s brows. “What’s wrong?”

“Lucy wants Supergirl to go to that wedding in San Francisco,” Kara replied. She took a sip of her water.

“Oh yea, the fancy media one.” Alex clicked a button the remote. Netflix was asking if they were still watching. “We had to hire an outside firm to write up the contract for your appearance.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yea,” Alex said. Her eyes widened just the tiniest bit, remembering. She shuddered. “Like we’re just gonna throw you into a wedding and tell people to go nuts with photos. Anything with the crest has to be approved for release. And if they take selfies, Winn designed an algorithm in case we need an immediate cease and desist.”

“Oh.” Kara furrowed her brows. “I wasn’t really worried about that.”

“No?”

“Okay, I guess a little. So maybe it is a relief.” Kara shifted on the couch. “It just doesn’t… it feels weird.”

“Because… it’s a social thing? You’ve done social things as Supergirl before.” Alex tilted her head, squinting. “I mean Lena invited you to her gala. Twice.”

“Lena was asking me for help. This is different.”

“And you’re worried because they want Supergirl and not Kara.”

“I guess,” Kara said honestly.

Alex studied her sister carefully. She watched Kara pick at a loose thread in the blanket, her other hand delicately holding her glass of water. There was a memory there, suddenly, like it was just yesterday, of Kara and her inability to hold any of Eliza’s glassware. Alex could remember the exact way a pint glass sounded when it exploded because Kara was startled by a car horn 3 miles away from the house. She’s cleaned a lot of broken glass in her lifetime.

“You know that you are Supergirl, right?”

“Duh, Alex,” Kara said, rolling her eyes, but smiling.

“No, I mean—all the things Supergirl is and does: that’s you, too. You’re a good person, Kara.”

How should Kara tell her sister that sometimes she didn’t feel like it without worrying her? People felt that way all the time, right? Humans, anyway? And it wasn’t… it wasn’t morality. Kara knew that she was a good person, morally. But there were other markers, other areas of success and measurement that people compared themselves to. There was being good and there was being good enough.

Kara talked to Alex about everything, but sometimes she would have liked to ask Kal how he handled these moments. These trying-to-be-human moments. Was it silly for an alien to be insecure about the markers of life’s success for a human? Kara didn’t have an answer for that.

“It’d be more fun if you could come with me,” she settled on. Alex snorted in response.

“No way. I’d pull a gun halfway through. You’re the more likeable sister anyway.”

-- 

Kara took her time flying up to San Francisco, her cape fluttering behind her, never once breaking the sound barrier. The coast was sunny and warm as it usually was, despite being November. She shot up through Long Beach, over Malibu, and straight through to Santa Barbara, grazing the water between the Channel Islands. Distracted by a pod of Bottlenose Dolphins, Kara took a lap around Santa Rosa Island, giggling at the California sea lions before flying north, following the Pacific Coast Highway.

She took a slight detour above San Simeon because she had a secret fondness for Hearst Castle and its strange, secluded opulence. In high school, Kara learned that the Castle was designed by Julia Morgan, the first woman architect licensed in the state of California. She’d have to make a donation under the Supergirl account for flying through, later; it was a California State Park after all. The Neptune Pool was still in the midst of its renovations but she brushed the palm trees in the gardens with her fingertips and briefly admired the two towers of La Casa Grande.

“Rosebud,” she whispered to herself, laughing at her own joke before she shot through the sky again.

At Bixby Bridge, Kara waved at children in cars and smiled at the few photographers quick enough to try and catch her. She was pretty sure she was going to be a blue and red blur in those photographs and hoped that she didn’t unknowingly ruin anyone’s shot. Pushing on, Kara flew above Carmel-by-the-Sea and its cottage-like center before shooting straight across the Monterey Bay toward Santa Cruz. She felt cheeky, so she found the youngest kid out on the surf and helped her ride a long wave before high fiving her on the beach and taking off again.

The affectionately named Karl the Fog blanketed San Francisco in typical fashion. Leisurely as she was, Kara still had time before her scheduled appearance at the Ritz-Carlton where the wedding was supposed to be taking place. She flew through Lake Merced, arching west above Ocean Beach before hitting directly east, cutting through Golden Gate Park. In Haight, she stopped a domestic dispute and in the Castro, she helped a nice, older lesbian couple get their smart car out of spot where two trucks had boxed them in.

It was nice: to do things in another city. Overlap wasn’t exactly unwelcomed, but Metropolis had her cousin and Gotham had the Batman, so Kara wondered, briefly, if she would run into Wonder Woman. She doubted it, but it would have been a nice story to relay to her new friend, Carla.

She helped out in a few more spots around the city, feeling guilty because a part of her was almost wishing for something life altering and time consuming to draw her attention. But San Francisco was calm and Karl the Fog was dispersing into the Bay, about to give way to a surprisingly clear night. Begrudgingly, Kara made her way over to the hotel.

-- 

There was assigned seating, because of course there was assigned seating. The ceremony was taking place on the terrace, under a white tent. Everyone was in evening gowns and tuxedos and wool suiting and Kara was… well she was Supergirl, so she supposed it didn’t matter, but she did always hate feeling underdressed. Being underdressed was admonished across many galaxies and on Earth and Krypton alike. Alex had shot down Winn’s enthusiastic offer to design something more suitable, much to Kara’s dismay.

She touched down as discreetly as possible, which was difficult, all things considered. She didn’t want to make an entrance, but it was impossible with her uniform and cape. Immediately, people came up to her, trying to introduce themselves and shake her hand all at once.

She smiled, but tersely. Not quite Kara Danvers, but still warm. Still approachable.

“Just be you,” Winn had said.

“But less… nice,” Alex cut in. And Kara had frowned at that.

In the span of 15 minutes, Kara shook hands with and was introduced to 3 mayors, 2 former intelligence officers, 4 actresses, 3 CEOs of companies she’d never heard of, 2 CFOs of more companies she’d never heard of, and the starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. She remembered a total of 3 names which was distressing because she was usually so good at names. Finally, thankfully, a woman with a headset started to herd guests to their seats, taking the time to point them out to their rows once she’d learned their names.

“Oh, Supergirl!” the woman said, when Kara eventually made it up to her. She blushed. Her name tag said her name was Nancy.

“Hi Nancy, I just need to know where my seat is?” Kara asked her politely. The woman’s blush darkened and she fumbled with the tablet in front of her, nearly dropping it as she showed Kara the seating arrangement.

“We—uhm—we put you on the end just in case you needed to leave for an emergency. However, as—as I’m sure you know the—uhm—the couple asked that you please not leave during the ceremony.”

Kara smiled gently at her. Nancy had been directing people of all sorts of social status and hierarchy and here she was, all flustered in front of Supergirl. A part of Kara preened a little at that.

“Thanks a lot, Nancy,” she said. Nancy’s blush darkened a bit and Kara walked off, but not before she glanced back and saw Nancy visibly collect herself before stoically directing the next guest. Kara paused on her way to her seat, her eyes roving from one end of the tent to another having settled on an unexpected and recognizable set of shoulders.

Her ears tuned to something familiar before soft music started playing above it through speakers, signaling the start of the ceremony.

-- 

It was, quite possibly, the most sterile thing she’d ever had to experience for something that was—in her opinion—supposed to signify so much. It was bland and droning and even the smattering of sniffles throughout the audience seemed too perfect, like paid actors were taking cues from certain lines. At one point, Kara looked over and one of the actresses she’d met was quietly, beautifully crying, and she was almost fully certain that that actress was invited for that particular reason, especially when a camera shutter clacked right as she dabbed her eye gently with a handkerchief.

If she wasn’t in uniform at one of society’s highest functions, she would roll her eyes. But she was Supergirl. So Supergirl smiled politely and clapped and sat up straight and stood at the correct times. Kara listened to the officiant (the Mayor of San Francisco of all people) drone on about holy matrimony, the duties of marriage, and the obligation of love, and realized that she missed J, and the Liu’s, and Carla, and the only other wedding she’d gone to on this planet that hadn’t bored her to pieces. Was Alex right? Was she too optimistic? Were they all like this? Scripted and sterile?

Kara hoped not.

Someone tilted their head and sunlight bounced across the room, ricocheting off an earring. Kara’s eyes followed the movement, the bouncing light dancing across the inside of the tent. Blue met green for a second and Kara smiled. She was met with the smallest arch of an eyebrow, a movement so minuscule it might as well have been an extension of a breath. Kara quietly cleared her throat and snapped her attention back to the officiant who was, in his very official sounding voice, announcing things that the State of California had vested him.

Everyone clapped. A live quintet played the walk out music and the couple and their model brigade walked out to subdued cheering and falling flower petals.

-- 

“I think one of us needs to change.”

“Hello, Supergirl.”

Lena turned away from the bar, glass in hand. She willed her face to remain neutral; however, neutral in this instance came with a smirk. Supergirl was standing 3 feet from a bar on the terrace of the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco, striking that famous power pose of hers and suggesting that one of them needed to change. She could allow herself a smirk.

Lena adjusted the deep red shawl draped across her shoulders and picked away imaginary lint.

“Didn’t know you and your cousin had a monopoly on color,” Lena said. Supergirl smiled.

“He’s more of a 2758C. I’m more of a 289C.”

“I also didn’t know Supergirl knew her Pantone colors off the top of her head.”

Supergirl’s back straightened, just a little.

“And they said you were a genius,” she joked. “I could recite the CMYK codes for you if you’d like.”

Lena almost laughed. Instead, the corners of her lips twitched, amused and altogether entertained by the woman standing in front of her, hands still on her hips, cape hanging limply without a breeze. But that would be a different reaction between a different set of people at a different sort of place. Supergirl pointed at her dress—a dark, royal blue, conservatively cut evening gown.

“I’d say that’s more my shade, don’t you think, Miss Luthor?”

“Maybe I’m just a fan,” she settled on. Supergirl smiled wider and Lena couldn’t help but think that it blurred the softened line between what she knew and what she was supposed to know. She gestured to the bar. “Would you like a drink?”

“Alcohol has no effect on me,” she said, honestly. She saddled up to the bar anyway, signaling for a water. “I can get dehydrated though.”

Lena blinked, cataloged the (not one but) two nonchalant facts into a filing cabinet labeled Supergirl in the back of her head and took a sip of her whiskey. She’d instilled a 3-drink limit on herself tonight.

“So, no hangover then. Lucky,” Lena quipped.

Lena watched as Supergirl paused, thinking or perhaps scanning, listening. One hand came up to her face, an index finger extended before delineating from its path to the bridge of her nose and instead tucking blonde hair behind an ear quickly.

“I can get a hangover. But—” She shifted, eyes sweeping across the room. “—not from anything of this particular planet.”

Lena hummed, still cataloging this freely given information. At once, Lena felt as though there were two sides of her. The selfish part of her and the selfless part of her. Just as suddenly, she couldn’t parse out which part of her was so willing to pry and peak into the part of her friend she wasn’t supposed to know was a part of her. She squashed it all down, pushed both halves together, and folded in the endless curiosity.    

“Supergirl, wouldn’t you appreciate some more polite company?”

Lena sighed, ignoring the way Supergirl’s chin tipped, her head cocked like a loaded gun. Lena tried not to smile as Supergirl turned slowly, broadening her shoulders as she rounded on the man who’d appeared. Tall, relatively handsome, weak jaw…

“And that would be you?” Supergirl asked before Lena could place his name. He smiled at her before sticking his hand out, all gruff and hyper-masculine. He puffed his chest out like a bird. Lena rolled her eyes. Eddie something or another. He had a lot of money and maybe owned a sports team, perhaps two.

“Surely. I mean, my last name isn’t Luthor after all,” he said, all toothy and plastic.

“My name’s not Shirley, and this Luthor is my friend.”

Lena watched his gaze flicker between them, his hand faltering as the realization that Supergirl wasn’t about to shake his hand seeped in. He crossed his arms.

“Right until she backstabs you,” he spat, statement directed at Lena.

Lena clenched her glass as Supergirl took a step forward.

“Don’t,” Lena breathed, so softly she wasn’t sure Kara would hear it. It was just escaped air; she didn’t even move her lips. But a small bit of edge came off Supergirl’s shoulders. And the man—Eddie what was it—had the decency to look almost scared.

“This is a wedding.” Supergirl took another half a step forward, assuming her natural pose for intimidation. “Please don’t sully it with your bad attitude and negativity.”

Lena pursed her lips, trying not to smile again. It was like listening to someone lecture a child for misbehaving. For a moment, Lena could hear those exact lines in Lillian’s voice. An otherwise shudder-inducing memory made humorous by the fact that it was being delivered to a grown man by a woman in a cape. Eddie—no!—David merely frowned.

“Have it your way, Supergirl,” he said flippantly. He stalked off toward the other end of the bar.

“People have some nerve,” she said, hands still on her hips. “It’s a wedding. Just be nice.”

Lena chuckled and felt her face finally crack, break into a smile.

“I’ve never met someone who believed so ardently that weddings should be so good.”

“They’re about love not—not social agenda! You’re supposed to be surrounded by people you love who love you.”

“That’s pretty idealistic,” Lena said. “Sometimes, you have to invite the obligations and the awkward plus ones.”

“But still, those people want to be there! They shouldn’t be there for—for—for saving face or whatever!”

“And yet, Supergirl,” Lena reminded her. “Here we are.”

It was a brief respite. Supergirl blinked and seemed to come back to herself, ironing out her stutter and her posture. Which was the truth? One? The other? Both? Neither? There was another thought there, something that Lena wasn’t going to give much processing, but it sounded a lot like all. It was—at once—terrifying and comforting.

Lena sighed and tilted her head.

“I think they’re starting dinner service.”

Supergirl turned her head towards the ballroom, repurposed as a dining hall for the multitude of guests. It was less wedding and more fancy-dinner-gala with the exception of the large table on an elevated stage for the wedding party. Her eyes flicked back to Lena, a charming smile spreading across her lips.

“I smell potstickers,” she said.

And Lena could do nothing but smile back at Kara.

-- 

“Cat Grant RSVPs and then no-shows? Typical.”

The grouchy man on Kara’s right was stout and ruddy and he smelled like rum. She wasn’t quite sure whether that was entirely due to her super senses. To her left was an empty seat with the place card for Ms. Grant left untouched. Kara found herself both relieved and disappointed.

“Hello, I’m Supergirl,” she tried to say, remembering her approachable, but warm smile. The man was having none of it.

“I’ve got no interest if you’re pulling that crap here—anybody could google a thing about you, Supergirl, so unless you’re about to spill your secret identity I’d like to eat this beef wellington in peace.”

To say she was surprised would have been an understatement.

The rest of her table seemed to exhibit the same kind of aloof iciness. And not just to her—no, they seemed to want nothing more than to eat as quickly as possible so they could eject themselves from their seats and mingle properly. One gentleman’s wife (or girlfriend—his plus one, anyway) gave her an apologetic smile between courses, and that was that.

Kara tried not to scowl as she pushed food around on her plate, feeling irritated and oddly lonely. She was buzzing with unspent and restless energy but felt contained to this persona that felt awkward and stifled. Not because she had to be Supergirl, but because the people around her weren’t being particularly active participants in the charade and comradery.

Between the fourth and fifth courses, Kara recognized a chime of laughter halfway across the room. With the rest of her table preoccupied with either eating or hellbent on ignoring one another, Kara chanced a glance, distracted by the pretty, lilting sound. It was, of course, Lena. Lena’s table looked to be about the same; at least half of the guests there were turned around completely, conversing with people from other tables. But Lena was talking to a woman on her right, who smiled at her with an easy, confident smirk, and then she was laughing again.

Kara sighed and willed herself not to eavesdrop. Lena was laughing. And she was sitting by herself pushing puff pastry around on a plate she was sure cost more than all her dinnerware at home. A waiter interrupted her assault on the remnants of her dinner to take the plate away and suddenly Kara was left without a distraction.

“You’ll have to come, then, to see the exhibition. It’d be no problem to let you in after hours.”

“Well, I might have to take you up on that offer, Diana.”

“I could give you a private tour.”

Kara sniffed and stood abruptly. Half of her table ignored her and the couple stopped mid-conversation, but she walked toward the bar without sparring them a glance. It was late enough into the dinner that those who gathered around the bar ended up staying at the bar, and so she distracted herself from conversations she had no business eavesdropping on by hopefully engaging in conversations of her own.

--

Post-dinner was a remarkably better affair.

There was this thing that the guests did that Kara didn’t really understand but caught on to anyway. It started with one table and then spread across the ballroom—forks and knives gently tapping against glassware in a flurry of scattered notes. Someone would whoop or cheer and everybody would look at the wedding table, expectant. And then the couple would kiss and everyone would clap or laugh and the sound would dissipate.

She didn’t really understand it, only that they were doing it and that it was, apparently, a thing to do. It got the couple to kiss—why they needed an excuse, Kara didn’t understand. Admittedly, it was strange to realize that she’d somehow been uninformed of this tradition during her 14 years on Earth.

The clinking sound started up again.

“Another whiskey please.”

“Lena,” Kara said. Lena glanced over, smiling at her. The clinking rose in a crescendo across the room then broke into laughter. Kara frowned. “I don’t understand why they do that.”

Lena looked around, confused before she put two and two together.

“Honestly, I don’t know why either.” The bartender handed her a glass and she tipped him well. “It’s always just something that happens.”

“There’s—” Kara twisted her hands in on themselves. “There’s not a story or meaning behind it?”

Lena crossed her arms, glass held nonchalant away from herself. She looked remarkably pensive for such a mundane question.

“I’m sure there must’ve been,” Lena said. “A lot of human traditions are like that. Genesis forgotten or what have you.”

“That’s true,” Kara remarked. She frowned, remembering that she was Supergirl and not Kara in this instance, and that that fact always got a little muddled when she was with Lena. But Lena never exploited it. Never pressured her. “I—I remember on Krypton. The ceremony: it was a bit like your western traditions. But more… I guess the English word would be militant.”

Like the last true bits of information Kara had given her, this statement sank into Lena with the barest hint of surprise and calculation. Kara smiled; it was like watching a loading screen before Lena’s face would smooth out back to neutral.

“Could it be replicated on Earth? The ceremony I mean?” Lena asked. It surprised Kara for a moment and her face must have said as much. “Just genuinely curious. Which I guess isn’t entirely comforting from a Luthor.”

Kara lifted her hand a fraction before remembering her cape and uniform.

“Sort of,” she answered, not paying the Luthor comment any mind. “I mean, I guess not really. All marriages on Krypton took place at the Jewel of Truth and Honor, which… obviously doesn’t exist anymore. But the rest of it, yes.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sure these are probably more intimate questions than you’re used to.”

Kara smiled, tried not to make it sad around the edges.

“I don’t mind telling you,” she said, honestly. Kara wasn’t so naïve. There was something there that they didn’t talk about; a duality of understanding, a line drawn in the sand that got less and less distinct as time passed, like the tide was rising. It was rising and someday soon the waves were going to crest. Sometimes, Kara thought Lena was better at playing the game than she was. “It isn’t a very long ceremony. Couples stand at the Jewel of Truth and Honor at the Palace of Marriage and then there’s a sort of religious script. Statues are involved.”

“Statues?”

Kara nodded. “Of our parents.”

“Oh.”

Kara looked pensive for a moment. “It’ll be hard to commission that one… Anyway, and we exchange bracelets, not rings.”

“Bracelets?”

"Every couple has a… gosh what’s the word—when colors compliment—scheme! Every couple has a color scheme that’s unique to them and can never be duplicated.”

“That’s—”

Whatever Lena was about to say was cut off by a rowdy, drunken mess of people interrupting them and sliding their way into the bar. A basketball player—or was he a baseball player?—managed to wedge himself right between Kara and Lena and another woman quickly joined his side, shouting out drink orders seemingly as loud as she possibly could. Lena’s face hardened and she stepped away, but not before she acknowledged Kara a little apologetically before slipping in amongst the crowd.

Kara’s cape was grabbed, tugged just enough so that she felt it, and then she was being manhandled for selfies and politely, but firmly denying shot glasses thrust under her nose.

More than once, while Kara was supposed to be focusing on the lens or phone in front of her, she found herself distracted by a pair of green eyes meeting hers from across the room.

-- 

“You know those are bad for you?”

Lena huffed through her nose, turning just briefly. She smiled.

“So, I’ve been told,” Lena said. She turned back to the sight of the city and lifted her hand to her mouth, cigarette between her fingers. “I don’t make a habit of it.”

Lena inhaled, the end of the cigarette smoldering orange as she did so. Kara could hear the crackle of tobacco like a bonfire. Lena paused, holding the smoke in her lungs before exhaling. Acrid, blue ghosts escaped neatly through her mouth. Tapping on the filter, she ashed the cigarette to her side. In her other hand, Lena held up a silver cigarette case.  

“I don’t suppose…”

Kara lifted her hand in dismissal.

“No, thank you.” She walked towards the railing to join Lena. “Those look… fancy.”

Lena lifted her hand again, smirking as she placed the gold filter delicately between the dark red of her lips. The black filter paper burned slowly as she inhaled.

“Nat Sherman’s. Same amount of harm for three times the price.”

Kara hummed. She was almost embarrassed by how entranced she was, watching smoke waft above Lena’s head, out through her mouth, the tail end of her exhale through her nose. She tried to remind herself that there wasn’t anything sexy about carcinogens, but even as she thought it, Lena repeated her inhale and Kara still found it… alluring.

“So. Why isn’t Supergirl inside mingling with society’s elite?” Lena asked, her focus back on the city lights, smoke still rising in tendrils from her hand, extended away from Kara.

Across the street an older gentleman walked his dog. He shuffled, spending more time on his right foot than his left. Kara could still feel the bass from the music inside thrumming through her blood. Two floors down a couple were laughing in the hallway, stumbling toward their room. They both had lost their keys, but only Kara knew that. They were happy. She could smell Chinatown from the rooftop. The Golden Gate had light traffic on it.

Because I couldn’t find you in there.

“It’s… too loud.” Kara shifted and her cape caught the breeze, lifting just slightly. “I could ask the same of you.” She pointed at the black and gold cigarette, burning slowly. “Although, I guess that’s reason enough.”

Lena glanced at her, smirk on her lips all lopsided and cool.

“Like I said, I don’t make a habit of it.” She flicked ash to the side and looked deeply contemplative for a moment. “How does it work?”

“Pardon?”

“You have… enhanced hearing, yes?” Lena asked. Kara could tell Lena was determined to avoid the word super. It made her want to giggle. “How does it work so that you and I can have a conversation but you can still hear a siren going off across the city?”

“Oh.” Kara blinked. She hadn’t had to describe the careful control of her powers to anybody human in a while.

“If I’m—let’s just say—at a rock concert and people are yelling and if it’s too loud, I can’t block out everyone to hear the person standing next to me. They would have to be screaming in my ear. But you can have this conversation with me and… listen in on what, exactly?”

Kara tuned her hearing outward. There was something on the edge of the hotel she couldn’t quite make out at first and focused on it. She flushed when she realized what she was listening in on.

“Oh. There’s a… well three people are enjoying themselves quite a bit on the second floor.”

Lena laughed, all bright and pretty, smiling like she did when it was just the two of them.

“How do you do that?”

“When you hear, humans that is, it’s more like… a funnel,” Kara explained. Lena looked captivated, standing bright eyed and engaged as Kara spoke. “Everything comes in and the loudest things of all get your attention. But when I hear…” She paused, trying to think of an appropriate metaphor. “It’s almost like a radar. Except not. You know when water is still and you throw a pebble in, waves ripple out from the center? It’s a little like that. And I’m the center. But I’m not the pebble? I’m kind of the water.”

“The water,” Lena murmured. Kara could see her thinking, putting together concepts, breaking them down so she might better understand the way Kara hears. Lena hummed, snuffed out the butt of her cigarette on the bottom of her heel, then pulled out her silver zippo and another cigarette from her metal case.

“Sort of. It’s hard to explain, but I can always be aware of all the noise it’s just… what ripple do I focus on. And what might make another ripple.”

“Fascinating.” Lena tapped the non-filtered end of the cigarette against the shell of its case twice. “What helps you choose a ripple to focus on?”

“Well,” Kara started. She blushed then ducked her head. She lifted her hand to her face and nearly poked her eye out trying to adjust non-existent glasses while Lena busied herself with lighting her cigarette. “Usually someone’s heartbeat.”

The zippo clicked on, the fire burning bright and blue, smelling faintly like lighter fluid and metallic chemicals. Lena paused. The cigarette was held in her mouth, dark red lips wrapped around that shimmering gold filter, one hand up to shelter the flame from the wind. The flame waned, flickered in the breeze, and Lena lit her cigarette, inhaling to make sure it was started.

“Someone’s heartbeat,” she clarified, exhaling phantoms from her mouth again. “Can you hear mine, right now?”

“Yes,” Kara murmured, not meaning to sound so breathless by her answer, but caught off guard by the blatancy of the question. She blinked and tried not to wring her hands together. “It’s—everyone has a different heartbeat.”

“I feel like that’s something I should know,” Lena said, still looking contemplative, almost dreamy. “Hearts of varying sizes, four chambers for blood to push through, veins with all sorts of different circumferences…”

“Way to take the romance out of it,” Kara scoffed playfully, smiling despite her comment.

Lena hummed.

“Is it, though?”

“What?” Kara asked, caught off guard again.

“Romantic? Is it innately romantic when you listen that closely to someone?”

“Uhm.”

“I mean intimate, sure. That’s immediately understandable.”

Kara flushed.

“It was—it was just a turn of phrase.”

Lena turned, facing Kara fully then, a dangerous and remarkable smile playing on her lips.

“Oh, you’re teasing me,” Kara said. She furrowed her brows.

“I am,” Lena replied. She smiled, her nose scrunching up the way it did when Kara knew Lena found herself particularly funny or humorous. “Who could pass up the chance to tease the Girl of Steel?”

The breeze picked up again, catching Kara’s cape—the fabric tugged gently at her shoulders as it fluttered against the wind. She frowned, shifting her weight from one foot to another. The tide was rising, coming up to meet that line drawn in the sand, waves kissing the boundary between one and another so close, so gentle. It would be so easy to let the wave crest. A statement formed, stuck itself in Kara’s throat, and threatened to push out past her tongue. Should she let it go? Throw it out into the ether, the terrifying unknown between them?

Lena crushed the unfinished cigarette against the railing. The black filter crumpled on itself and unlit tobacco spilt to the ground. A last ribbon of smoke escaped into the night. When had she taken a step forward? Had they always been standing this close? Kara could smell the tobacco, the somewhat sharp and slightly sour smell of cigarette smoke, and underneath that something that reminded her of toasted tea leaves. Lena was eyeing the crest, a hint of reverence there.

It could be so easy, to say the words that would confirm a before and after, a knowing and not knowing, an idea and a fact. It could be so easy. So why did the sentence stick in her mouth, glue her tongue to her palate?

“Lena,” Kara started. “I—”

Lena’s hand raised and settled on Kara’s shoulder. The movement was gentle, almost lazy in its pace. Lena’s expression was soft, her head tilted thoughtfully, but her hand was still present on Kara’s shoulder, halting that statement that took them from point A to point B. Was it on purpose?

“We should get back inside. Particularly before someone thinks I’m murdering you out here,” Lena said. Kara thought it was a funny thing to say. They hadn’t come together. Maybe it was a deflection. She wondered if Lena was one of those people who ran from the ocean as the waves came in and out on the beach.

“Yea.” Kara exhaled past the moment, willed her brain to plow forward. Lena’s heartbeat was strong and steady and loud in her ear. The line in the sand stayed ever present. The tide receded. “I think they’re starting the bouquet toss.”

“We wouldn’t want to miss that, would we?”

Kara thought for a moment before smiling, bending slightly at the hip and gesturing for Lena to take the lead.

She remembered something Jeremiah had told her when she’d first arrived on this planet. It was inconsequential in terms of memories—it wasn’t like it was a pivotal moment in her adolescence (no, those were more akin to entire planets exploding and finding out her cousin was a grown man and her adopted father being declared MIA). But she remembered it then as she followed closely behind Lena, eyeing the juxtaposition between a pale neck and shoulders and the deep red of her shawl.

He had taken her to the beach. It wasn’t even the first time he’d taken her. She can’t remember the conversation that surrounded this memory, but there it was, clear as day, suddenly and vividly as if she were 14 again. He knelt beside her as she played with the wet sand. She remembered what he said.

“Kara, if the ocean disappears suddenly, don’t go looking for it, okay?”

-- 

The center of the ballroom had been cleared for a dancefloor and stage for the DJ sometime after dinner. When Lena had stepped away to clear her head and indulge in a guilty habit, a mass of bodies were jovially (though chaotically) jumping and sweating together. There was still a chaotic mess of inebriated fellows in high social standing jumping together on the dancefloor, but it sounded like the DJ was trying to cajole every single woman into coming up for the bouquet toss.

Lena schooled her face the way she knew how in case a photographer nearby decided to try to catch her unaware. But these things were easy for Lena. Exhausting, maybe, but easy nonetheless. She preferred galas—they were easy to slip away from and typically resulted in her leaving early, but this was a wedding. The morally conscious part of her brain told her that leaving a wedding early was in poor taste. Even if that wedding had a guest list that resembled the Oscars more than anything else.

She stopped abruptly, path cut short by a couple laughing, shoving their way off the dancefloor. Supergirl must’ve been distracted by something because Lena felt what could vaguely be described as a truck colliding with her back before strong hands caught her shoulders and steadied her.

“Oh geez,” Supergirl murmured. “I’m sorry—someone waved at me.”

“Well, did you wave back?” Lena asked over her shoulder. Ladies in front of her were backing up, steadying themselves and giving one another elbow room, laughing.

“No, I just frowned at them,” Supergirl scoffed. “That was sarcastic. I rolled my eyes.”

“Thank you, I almost couldn’t tell—it’s not like I have x-ray vision.”

“I can’t x-ray the back of my own skull, Lena.”

Lena snorted, smiling despite herself.

“Careful, Supergirl,” Lena murmured, knowing that her friend would hear despite the noise—she took several steps back, hoping her heel wouldn’t accidentally catch on the Girl of Steel’s boot. Another couple of people pushed their way out of the crowd and Lena sidestepped them, arms now brushing against Supergirl’s so they could talk to each other almost properly.

“Do you think you’ll have a big wedding like this?” Supergirl asked innocently after a few moments of silence had passed between them. Lena pursed her lips. Hadn’t she had this conversation? Or was that with someone else?

“Likely not,” Lena answered, eyes forward, still watching the crowd. In her periphery, Supergirl had turned to face her.

“Something small, then?” Supergirl pressed on, a hint of hopeful curiosity there.

It felt like déjà vu.

“Maybe. Not much family left, after all,” she said.

“So.” Supergirl shifted, fidgeted a little. “What do you imagine?”

“Nothing,” Lena said simply. “Nothing to imagine, no dream wedding scenario.”

Was she wringing her cape between her hands or was Lena imagining it? She willed her eyes not to stray from the continued amassing crowd in front of them. There was silence where she expected a follow up question. Bridesmaids were on the outskirts of the tables, corralling the remaining women onto the dancefloor.

“I never really saw myself as the marrying type,” she whispered. She knew Supergirl would hear her. To any outsider, particularly to any photographer, they looked like two women quietly standing next to one another. Supergirl took a small step closer, crowding Lena.

“Why’s that?” she asked quietly, just above the music, the announcements, and the cajoling.

Lena sighed.

“I’m sorry,” Supergirl said suddenly. “I didn’t—it was rude of me to pry.”

The muscles in her mouth twitched, aching to frown as a reflex to Supergirl’s words. It was habitual: a defense mechanism against hope, both the immediate way that Lena hardened against the line of questioning and also her true and honest neglect toward a mundane day dream.

“People are easy to manipulate,” Lena said, finally, after her gaze had exhausted the scene in front of her out of any point of interest. Supergirl shifted, sidestepped so they were shoulder to shoulder again, angling her body toward Lena. “What with my history, I might as well be a ticking time-bomb for tragedy and madness, am I wrong? Why subject someone to that?”

A deep frown carved its way across Supergirl’s face, forming a valley of crinkled skin between her brows. Lena turned and stared at the scar above her eyebrow, suddenly craving to know how it had formed, why it was still there.

“I don’t understand,” she murmured, the furrow of her brow deepening. “You’re a good person. Good things should happen to you. You should think about good things happening to you.”

A twinge of grief cut through Lena’s chest.

“A lot of people would disagree with you.”

“But you do good things every day. You make the right choice even when it’s the hard choice; how… why?”

Lena shrugged, eyes sliding away from the bride who was talking to the crowd and toward Supergirl. They should be paying attention. Perhaps there was some life changing advice she was missing before this bouquet was tossed to the wolves. Who knew? The moment seemed too fragile to break away from now, anyway. How did this look through a lens? Like two women acknowledging one another? Or did it look as vulnerable as Lena felt?

“Because it’s the hard choice—it’ll always be the hard choice. Against the nature of my own compulsions. Someday I might get lazy or forgetful or too content with what I think is right instead of what actually is right.”

Supergirl sighed hard through her nose. Lena noticed there was a certain kind of simmer behind the blue of her eyes, something like anger but not quite.

“Your brother thought that, but about other people,” Supergirl said, finally.

Something was happening in Lena’s periphery. A countdown maybe, some kind of excitement incongruous and parallel to this odd, misplaced moment between her and Supergirl. Lena inclined her head in thoughtful way, thinking on those words. Supergirl’s face was full of empathy and worry. It eased the pang of deprecation, softened the corners of Lena’s lips.

Her eyes were so blue.

“Autumn,” Lena said. “I remember being very young and wanting to get married in early autumn.”

Supergirl’s face smoothed out, broke into a smile that looked familiar and different all at once. A real one, the one that pointed her chin and put crow’s feet by her eyes. Her eyes, which very suddenly widened in surprise before Supergirl’s hand shot out in front of Lena so quick she couldn’t see it but felt a breeze of air from the movement.

Lena blinked and inhaled the sudden, intoxicating scent of fresh flowers.

“Oh!”

Applause rang out and Lena could do nothing to stifle her laugh except a poor attempt at hiding it behind her hand. Supergirl gripped the bouquet in her hand and Lena was surprised it wasn’t crushed to dust upon capture, held aloft right in front of her face.

“I think this is for you,” she said, cheeks tinged pink.

Lena was still laughing as she put her hand gently on Kara’s, feeling the tendons and metacarpals relax as she pushed softly away from herself.

“I think you caught this fair and square, Supergirl.”

A camera shuttered besides them.

-- 

It was pure instinct to thrust her hand out in front of Lena’s face and catch whatever was on a collision course with her friend. Her brain hadn’t even registered what it was, only that it was coming, and Lena hadn’t noticed, and Kara needed to stop it from hitting her. So she thrust her hand out, felt her fingers wrap around silk and flower stems, and loosened enough so that she wouldn’t crush everything to pulp in the instant that it was caught.

She almost breathed a sigh of relief when she realized it wasn’t something more insidious or life threatening, but then she realized that there was a spotlight and people were clapping and staring and she’d just caught the bouquet.

So she tried to play it off.

But of course, Lena wouldn’t let her.

“I think you caught this fair and square, Supergirl.”

Kara registered the warmth of Lena’s hand pushing against her and then the clack of a camera’s shutter, the brightness of a flash somewhere, and suddenly she was being mobbed again by people who wanted to take a photo with her or ask her mundane or borderline inappropriate questions. Women who had been upset that they hadn’t caught the bouquet now had their features smoothed and were trying to get into photos with her. Some hung onto her biceps a little too affectionately. One actually tried to kiss her on the cheek, but Kara reeled back suddenly and tried to remember to smile for the camera anyway.

At some point, Nancy had stepped in to ask if Supergirl wanted the bouquet to be held at the entrance so Kara wouldn’t have to carry it around for the rest of the night. Kara was thankful, said as much, and addressed Nancy by name, earning her one of those faint blushes once more. Then the sea of people closed in on her again and Kara could feel her social reserves running on empty.

A man tugged on her elbow, suddenly, and when she turned—confused as to who was trying to get her attention now—he smiled lecherously at her. His eyes were a bit glazed and his cheeks were bright and red. The top button of his dress shirt was undone and his tie was loosened.

“Supergirl,” he said, smelling like alcohol, sweat on his brow. “Come dance with me.”

Kara tried hard not to make a face as she planted her feet when he tried to tug her toward him again.

“Oh—uhm—no thank you,” Kara said, trying to sound polite.

“I’ll make it well worth your while,” he responded. The strength of his grip horrified Kara—not that it at all hurt her, but because she knew that it could hurt someone else. “You know what they say about the girl who catches the bouquet?”

Kara opened her mouth to confirm that she did, in fact, know what the tradition was meant to signify, but he pressed on, ignoring her attempts at voicing her own opinions.

“You’re an alien, right, so you don’t know,” he said. Kara frowned, taken aback. “Silly Earth traditions and all that—but look.” He held up a piece of lacy, white fabric in front of her face and stepped closer. “You caught the flowers and I caught the garter, so clearly it was meant to be.”

He waggled his eyebrows.

“Supergirl, I think you owe me a dance.”

A hand slipped into Kara’s suddenly and tugged her toward the dancefloor and Kara went willingly, relieved at the reprieve from what’s-his-name and his gross come-ons.

Kara heard him mutter to himself (something that sounded suspiciously like “fucking Luthor”) as Lena led them away without any further explanation as to how Supergirl could possibly come to owe Lena Luthor a dance. The music had all wound down to something soothing and slow and out on the dancefloor it almost looked like a real wedding—couples held onto each other fondly, some swaying awkwardly, some cutting across the floor like they were professionals. They were probably professionals.

“Thank you,” Kara breathed.

“Oh, don’t thank me yet,” Lena said. She looked worriedly around at the dance floor. “I’m terrible at dancing. But you looked like you needed saving.”

“Lucky for you I took ballroom dance classes in college,” Kara remarked absently, settling one hand around Lena’s waist, her other held outward with Lena’s, but keeping a reasonable distance between their bodies. Lena stiffened and for one fearful moment Kara thought she hurt her by the stutter in Lena’s movements.

“I didn’t know Supergirl went to college,” Lena said.

Kara was tired. A million ways to fix her mistake rolled through her mind like someone searching through a rolodex. But it was Lena and she was tired of watching the tide rise and fall.

“Supergirl didn’t, but her secret identity did.”

“The secret identity that nobody is supposed to know about or even know exists?” Lena muttered. Kara answered with a sigh.

“That one.”

Lena squeezed Kara’s hand briefly, endearingly. And then they were quiet, moving together, and Kara knew that Lena was concentrating very hard, trying to match her steps, because Lena’s eyes were glued to their feet.

Nobody came to bother them, though Kara’s hearing could pick up the scattered whispers of incredulity and a Super and a Luthor? throughout the ballroom. The steps were easy and basic for Kara (the ballroom classes fulfilled a 0.5 unit requirement she needed one semester at National City University and she’d had so much fun she took 3 more classes just because she could) as she led the dance with little flair. It felt familiar and warm.

“Shit,” Lena swore, as she fumbled oddly and managed to step on Kara’s foot. She hardly felt it. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kara said. “You know, I feel like dancing is something you’d be good at.”

Lena snorted through her nose, an undignified but amusing sound.

“I took lessons,” Lena muttered. “I took lessons in etiquette, piano, viola, horseback riding, and 3 different forms of dance, and I can remember which order you’re supposed to set soup, salad, and entrée cutlery but I’ve never, in my life, been able to dance.”

“Viola?”

“Lillian insisted on the violin or cello, but I wanted to know 3 clefs instead of just 2.”

“Sounds stubborn.”

Lena looked up at that, deadpan look on her face as if to say have you met me? Kara laughed until it petered off. They moved again, gently and behind the beat of the music until the song ended. Lena detached herself from Kara’s grip, naturally, unhurried. The both of them stepped off the dancefloor.

“Thanks again,” Kara said, because she really was grateful. Lena smiled at her.

“You pulled me out of a helicopter once. The least I can do is save you from drunk men who want to leer at your super suit.”

Lena checked her watch and looked back amongst the crowd. Kara did the same, noting that the people at the bar were inebriated to high hell and a lot of the older guests had already left. She scanned outward, just to do a perimeter check, but stopped when she accidentally caught the best man and maid of honor doing blow off an iPad in the single occupancy bathroom toward the back of the ballroom.

“I think this is an acceptable time for me to make an exit,” Lena said. “You should probably avoid the bar.”

“Oh no, I think I’ll leave with you,” Kara said. “I mean—you know, leave at the same time, not—I’m gonna go home.”

Lena smirked. But she didn’t tease her.

“Are you going through the front door or are you taking off from the terrace?”

“I’ll walk you out,” Kara answered, smiling.

“You really don’t have to.”

“That’s true,” Kara said. She tilted her head, thinking. “But I want to.”

Lena’s arm made a movement before she thought better of it and let it fall awkwardly. Just past the entrance to the ballroom was Nancy. She waved at Kara, smiling brightly.

“Hi Supergirl, Miss Luthor,” she said as they approached. “Are you two leaving together?”

“Yes,” Lena answered in the simplest line of reasoning.

“No,” Kara said at the same time. They both glanced at each other, but Nancy paid it no mind or perhaps chose to ignore them both. She went behind a table and brought out the bouquet from earlier.

“Can’t leave without your souvenir, Supergirl,” she said. “I hope you ladies had a wonderful evening. The paparazzi’s been cleared by hotel staff, just so you know.”

Kara blushed a little at the implications.

“Thanks,” she said awkwardly.

“Have a good night!”

“She absolutely thinks we’re leaving together,” Lena said, once they were out the doors of the Ritz-Carlton. The night was chilly but the sky was clear. Lena wrapped her shawl tighter against her shoulders and checked her phone. “I don’t suppose you need a ride?”

“Nope,” Kara answered. She fought the urge to want to offer her cape against the cold of the San Francisco chill. “I’m flying home, tonight.”

Lena turned toward her, that curious look on her face again.

“How quick does that take you?”

“Well,” Kara started. She smiled and hoped that she didn’t sound like she was bragging. “I took over an hour on the way here just because I like the coast so much, but without causing any environmental damage, I can do it in about 2 seconds. But I think I’ll take it easy and stick to Mach 3 on my way back.”

“Faster than a speeding bullet,” Lena murmured, wonder in her voice, eyeing the bouquet. She mumbled something about Mach speed and metres per second under her breath. “Anyway, my car will be here soon, you don’t have to wait.”

“I don’t mind,” Kara said. There were no other pedestrians on the curb and only one car had gone by the front of the hotel so far. Lena’s driver never took too long—it wasn’t any type of inconvenience for her to wait.

There was something in the silence there as they stood on the curb. There was always… something between them and try as she might Kara could never put a word to it. It was more than the conversations they weren’t having or the closeness they shared despite the amount of time they’d known each other. It was just.. something. Something while they danced, something while they talked, something on the terrace.

“Thank you,” Kara said suddenly, before she could talk herself out of it.

“You are the only person to thank me so much for dancing with them,” Lena said, chuckling.

“Not that.” Kara shifted, let her cape flutter in the breeze. “I wasn’t… really looking forward to being here, tonight. But you spent time with me, so. Thank you.”

Lena gave her a puzzling look, something like scrutiny and sympathy rolled up in one.

“I feel like that’s more something I should be saying.”

“Why didn’t you bring anyone?” Kara asked.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t really have a choice,” she answered. “And even if I did, who would I bring? My cousin? That would be weird.”

The remark got Lena to smile, amused and knowing. Kara’s hearing picked up the sound of a heavy town car pulling onto Stockton and heading their way. It was most likely Lena’s driver.

“I had a feeling my usual wedding companion was busy,” Lena finally answered, not looking at Kara.

Kara hummed.

“My car is here,” Lena said, checking her phone. It was at a stop sign two blocks away.

“I know.”

It pulled up moments later and when the driver made to get out, Kara beat him to it and opened the door for Lena.

“Thanks, Supergirl,” Lena said, sliding into the car. Kara ducked her head, just under the doorframe. She looked at Lena for a moment, trying to find the green where her eyes were now gray, bathed in the dome light of the car.

“Would you mind doing me a favor?” she asked. Lena blinked, but didn’t look skeptical or outright say no, so Kara thrust her hand out from behind her back. “I saved someone from this and I’ve got no idea what to do with it.”

Lena laughed as she took the bouquet from Kara’s hands, their fingers brushing against each other during the pass off. She looked at the flowers, inspecting for a moment.

“Funny,” Lena said, picking at the petals of one particular flower. “Carnations.”

Kara tilted her head and Lena looked up at her, but did not elaborate.

“Good night, Lena,” Kara said, with a smile.

“Good night,” Lena answered. “See you in National City.”

Kara waved before shooting up straight into the sky, high enough so that when she broke the sound barrier, anybody who was paying attention would only hear a slight pop.

-- 

Alex was asleep on Kara’s couch when she got back, laptop open with the photographer’s FTP feed up on her coffee table. There was a half-finished bottle of beer next to it and the television had Netflix wondering if anyone was still there. Kara changed out of her suit and into pajamas before she threw one of her blankets over her sister.

“Crap, what time is it?” Alex asked sleepily.

“Around 11:30,” Kara said. She’d taken the bottle and was emptying it in the kitchen sink.

“God, I’m old,” Alex mumbled. Kara snorted, thinking Alex was already halfway back to dreaming. “Did you have fun?”

“Oh. Uhm. I guess it wasn’t bad,” Kara answered truthfully.

“That’s good,” Alex muttered. Kara could hear Alex licking the roof of her mouth, a sound she always hated. Alex turned over in her half-sleep and mumbled into the couch cushions, but Kara could still make out her words. “You and Lena looked nice.”

And then Alex sighed, her breath evened out, and Kara knew her sister was out for the count. She turned out the rest of her lights before curiosity got the better of her and she went over to her sister’s computer. Alex had already gone through and marked most whatever Kara was in.

Among the celebrity meet and greets and crowded shots of the dance floor, nestled in between a line of women waiting to tackle one another and the photo line that formed after she’d accidentally caught the bouquet, was a single picture of her and Lena. She lost track of how long she sat on the floor staring at it, her heart full of affection and something before Alex snorted and Kara shut the laptop as if she’d been caught. She brushed her teeth and made sure to at least hang up her cape on the back of a chair before she settled into bed, still thinking of that photo.

They looked really happy and somehow that was strange to her. Kara rolled over as sleep began to trickle into her senses. She was stuck, trying to find a word for that something as waking moved farther and farther away from her.

Kara would have no recollection of this thought when she woke up in the morning to make Alex coffee and go through the details of the wedding. It will have been forgotten as Alex would inevitably force Kara to show her a picture of sleazy garter man so Alex could put him on some sort of shit list. But the thought was there, on the precipice of reality and unreality. It blinked into existence and then faded away.

It was just one word: inevitable.  

Chapter Text

The garage held the scent of disuse, a vaguely wet smell mixed with earth, stale air, and old motor oil. Electricity hummed to life with the flip of a switch; the antiquated fluorescent tubes flickered and buzzed as they warmed up for the first time in years. It was strange to be back. She told herself that she would never go back to this place unless it was absolutely necessary, and here she was, letting her heels echo against the concrete simply because she had a girlish desire.

Lena walked between two neat rows of cars, but she stopped in front of one in particular. She smirked at the black satin car cover, lightly dusted from sitting for so long in an unventilated (though temperature regulated) garage. She gripped the sheet in one hand, the place she’d seen her brother go for when she was a kid. Quickly, she lifted and then snapped her wrist back so that the entire cover came off in one fluid motion. A cloud of dust rose and then settled. She threw the cover to the side, letting it crumple on the ground carelessly.

She ran one finger along the spine of the car’s hood as she walked to the driver’s side door. The car was pristine, though it was probably last polished five years ago. It was a 1966 Shelby GT350, shiny and entirely jet black. Perfect, menacing, elegant. It was the epitome of a mid-60s hot rod.

“Hello, darling,” Lena purred as she opened the door and slid into the black leather bucket seats. It was almost lewd, the slow and careful way she ran her palms down the dark wood grain of the custom steering wheel installed by her father years ago. Her fingers traced its ridges with a light touch before they wrapped around the wheel and gripped tightly, testing the fit. The key was where it always was—wedged into the sun visor on the passenger side. Unsurprisingly, the car roared to life immediately. She let it run as she retrieved her weekender duffel and garment bag.

She always imagined her return to the Luthor Estate would be by failure, a desperate getaway from a miserable life she couldn’t afford (literally and figuratively) to continue. She imagined walking through those doors as a prodigal daughter, come back begrudgingly to beg forgiveness and love from Lillian. It wasn’t a thought she frequently lingered on; Metropolis held too much weight for her to ever consider coming back. It was a shadow that dragged behind her as she trudged on in National City, always trying to face forward, as if forward were west.

And yet? And yet here she was.

She slid back into the driver’s seat and popped mirrored aviators onto her face before she pulled her hair up into a tight ponytail, checked the rear view mirror, and reached across to manually unroll the passenger side window. Lena revved the engine, pleased that it sounded so damn good.

For one fleeting and terrifying moment, Lena had the most startling revelation: she was the richest 26 year old on the whole damn planet. Everything in that old, dusty house was hers. Every car in that garage was hers. Anything that cost money she could buy. She revved the engine again, let it echo in the confined space of the garage. She could have everything. She could sell it all and fuck off to live a stress-free life on some island in the Mediterranean or fulfill her 16 year old self’s fantasy of embodying a billionaire hotshot, coasting her way through the night life of every major city in every country in the world.

But she had somewhere she needed to be and all she wanted was her brother’s old car, the one their mother said was too flashy and too loud and drove like a tugboat.

Well. That wasn’t all she wanted. But that’s what she wanted in that moment before her revelation. And after?

She checked the mirror one last time before easing the car out of the garage. She watched each panel come down in the reflection and when the first one finally touched the ground, she put the car into gear. She hadn’t driven stick shift in ages, but it was what Lex taught her when he had time for her and it’s what she remembered of him aside from his orange jumpsuit and most recently hired hitmen. It came back to her naturally, immediately.

The Shelby took off like Lena remembered and it wasn’t long before she put the car into 6th, heading south on the highway, away from the Luthor Estate and toward the only thing that could have coaxed her back to this coast, to this place, to this house.

Lena tuned the radio and let The Shirelles urge her on as she sped toward Midvale with a smile on her face.

--

Salt and pine lingered in the air over Midvale in early Fall. Winds over the Atlantic had all summer to bring the smell of the ocean to the warmed East coast before it settled into the bay. The leaves along the highway had barely begun to color—everything was still mostly green with small smatterings of yellow and orange, like stray flecks of errant paint. The air was clear and light; the true indicator that Summer had given way to Fall. The hot, humid days petered and bowed out, leaving Midvale pleasantly warm and dry.

It was Kara’s favorite season.

She stood on the second story balcony of Eliza’s house, her second childhood home, and looked out toward the ocean, her gaze aimlessly ghosting over the blue water and the incline of trees on the shore. Kara could hear the waves lapping against the sand and stone, churning about like some ancient thing. The sliding door opened with a soft sound, bringing with it the smell of hot chocolate.

“Hi honey,” Eliza said, passing a mug to Kara. She took it gladly, smiling as she did so. “See anything interesting?”

Kara inclined her head back out toward the bay.

“Just the usual pitter patter of the local fishermen,” she said. More boats were coming in than going out for local morning sales. Kara could hear the chiming of ship’s bells signaling one thing or another and the distant yelling of captains and crew members.

Eliza hummed, looking out as she did so. Her finger tapped against the telescope that sat on the balcony, the one that used to belong to Kenny. Kara didn’t come home often, a fact she felt guilty about, but whenever she did, she was always grateful that Eliza kept everything like she remembered. Maybe it helped her, too, to leave everything the same. Kara always found herself forgetting how big that house was.

“I can’t believe it’s already time,” Eliza said, smiling against the rim of her mug.

“I know.” Kara smiled brightly. “Can you believe a year and half has already passed?”

Eliza shook her head. Every year seemed shorter and shorter—that was just a fact of life. But with Alex being Alex and Kara being Supergirl? Time seemed to fly by without so much as a blink.

“Are you sure you want to stay here?” Eliza asked, suddenly.

“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t we? Do you not want us here?”

“No, no, not that. It’s just—I’m sure Lena is used to more—” She waved her hand around vaguely. “Opulence.”

Kara laughed.

“But this is home. Nothing beats home,” she smiled. “And it’s walking distance to the venue.”

“Yes, and it’s walking distance to the venue,” Eliza echoed. “I’m just saying, if you and Lena were uncomfortable staying here after the wedding, I wouldn’t be offended if you chose to stay at the Belmond.”

“Who has money to stay at the Belmond?” Kara snorted. Eliza rolled her eyes. “Okay, Lena has money to stay at the Belmond… but that’s her money! I certainly can’t afford it.”

Eliza fixed Kara with a withering stare, one she used to give Kara in high school, silently berating her for teasing Alex about her less than Kryptonian aptitudes.

“ Eliza !” Kara sputtered. “Lena’s money is Lena’s money!”

“I’m just teasing you, Kara,” Eliza said. Gently, she touched Kara’s shoulder. “I’m just trying to reiterate that it wouldn’t hurt my feelings if you’d prefer to go the more traditional route.”

Kara enveloped Eliza in a hug with one arm, smiling as she did so.

They stood like that for a while, Kara with her arm around Eliza, matching cups of cocoa in their hands. Occasionally, Kara pointed out some interesting boating pattern on the bay and Eliza would squint until she could see the little white tail following the described vessel moving across the water. Eliza talked a bit about her research, bouncing a few questions off of Kara when she could, and then Kara talked about her duties as Supergirl, sparring her adoptive mother the less wholesome aspects of her job (the things that got her hurt, or Alex hurt, or other people hurt).

The natural lull of their conversation brought them to silence for a few moments before Kara sighed.

“I think… I think I’m going to tell, Lena,” she said, her voice smaller than it had been, less sure than it usually was. She dropped her arm from where it rested, trying to give Eliza some physical space to process. It didn’t take nearly as long as she thought it would for a response to come, however.

“You haven’t told Lena?!”

Kara pinked a little at Eliza’s tone, surprised and only slightly caught off guard by the reaction.

“I—what? No! She doesn’t know,” Kara said.

“Kara, honey, that woman knows.” The look Eliza fixed her with was one that had been especially reserved for Alex during her more rebellious, teenage years. “After everything the two of you have been through—I can’t believe she doesn’t know.”

Kara frowned but couldn’t find the words to protest the notion.

“Sometimes… it’s like—I don’t know how to explain it. But sometimes it’s like she doesn’t want to know,” Kara said. A familiar crinkle formed between her brows as her eyes darted across the tree line, searching, thinking. “Like if one of us says it, it becomes too real, and we’ll never be able to go back to who we were before. Does that make sense?”

Here, Eliza paused. Kara listened to the motors of each boat on the bay and the whisper of the wind in the trees. Someone skipped rocks on the shoreline. A car drove down the highway 10 miles over the speed limit. Eliza reached for Kara and rubbed gently between her shoulder blades. Kara’s eyes slipped shut and for a moment she was 14 years old and everything was too loud, and Eliza was there trying to comfort her.

Except everything was not too loud. It was more… on the precipice of change, a paradigm shift between one moment and the next. Kara felt closer to that edge every single day. In her mind, she imagined herself standing on the edge of a canyon, the bottom lost to shadow, drowned in ignorance. And if she continued to paint that metaphor in her head, Lena was standing next to her, and they had clasped hands, and both of them were to scared to ask if the other was ready to take that final leap.

“I don’t doubt for a second that Lena knows,” Eliza said, after some time. “But I can see why you hesitate to put the truth out there so plainly.” She wrapped her arms around Kara’s shoulders, rubbing her cheek against the soft cotton of Kara’s cardigan. “That being said, dear, I think it’s well past time you take the initiative and tell Lena the plain and simple truth.”

“Is it so plain and simple, though?” Kara asked. Even to her own ears she sounded like 15 years ago, asking about the difference in the color of the sky or the way gravity felt in a fearful way. Her face suddenly felt hot, her eyes full of unshed tears. She wiped at her face with her sleeve. She didn’t know why she was suddenly crying. She felt embarrassed by it, somehow. Eliza rubbed soothing circles against her shoulders without question.

“It could be, sweetie,” Eliza said. “It could be.”

Kara thought back before Supergirl, before the DEO, before CatCo. Her mind stuttered through her memories in reverse, moving quickly past the events of the last two years, all the way back through National City University and Stanhope College, back through highschool, reversing all the way until her memory butted up against an almost literal glass barrier, until it was too much to push past. Along the way, she tried to catalogue all the little pieces of advice Eliza tried to impart on her since coming to Earth. There were moments like look both ways before crossing the street, Kara and sweetie, if it’s too loud you can use these headphones . And then there were bigger things that she was sure Eliza threw out with wild abandon, never to understand the impact it would have on her like it’s okay if you’re not okay right now, just tell me how i can make it better and your best is your best—you don’t have to compare yourself to others if it doesn’t make you feel good .

The things that Eliza tried to teach her about lessons in humanity were hardly ever black and white, but they were typically correct. Kara thought about what Eliza said, how it could be simple, how it could be plain. It seemed an incredulous notion, rooted only in insanity and ignorance. But experience had told her that Eliza knew more than she did in these matters.

After a while, Eliza loosened her grip on Kara, but stayed close, nonetheless.

“I do have to say, you have terrible timing, Kara.”

Kara responded with a wet laugh, nodding in agreement to Eliza’s teasing.

“Better late than never, I suppose.”

--

It was still early in the afternoon when Kara’s ears picked up something strange, something out of place, from the highway.

“What on Earth?” she muttered. She’d been helping Eliza reorganize the bookshelf when she floated back down to the floor, walked up the stairs, and stepped out again toward the balcony.

Tilting her right ear toward the highway, Kara concentrated on the low rumbling until she found the exact car that had peaked her interest. It was loud but sturdy, like it could go on that way forever if the driver wanted. She’d heard old cars before but found them few and far between since living in National City. They were a rarity, and because of that, they typically triggered her hearing. Opening her eyes, Kara tried to take a peek at what was making so much noise as they barreled down the highway, cruising easily at 15 miles an hour above the limit.

The car was an inky black, remarkable in its shade and boldness—a cut of night darting across the asphalt. Admittedly, Kara didn’t know much about cars; that was more Alex’s thing. But it looked good and well taken care of. And then her hearing picked up something else from the car, something soft, something lovely and human.

“ Do I always feel so warm each time/ I look in your eyes of blue, oh,/ oh, oh, do I love you?/ Yes, I love you. ”

Lena Luthor sang slightly off-key to herself as she drove, just barely above the rumble of the motor. She was the very picture of cool with her painted red lips and mirrored aviators on, her hair blowing in the wind with the windows rolled down. She had one hand on the steering wheel, her index finger tapping lightly along to The Ronettes. Her other arm was propped against the ledge of the door, hand waving against the wind as she sped along. Kara strained for a few more moments before she realized Lena would be at her front door in about 7 and a half minutes.

She stepped back into the house and practically ran down the stairs, shouting as she did so.

“Eliza! Lena’s almost here!”

Eliza’s head peeked out from her study. She took her reading glasses from her face and placed them up into her hair.

“Did she just call?” Eliza asked.

“No. She’s got this—this old car,” Kara said. “Maybe it’s a rental? I thought she was just using her usual car service, to be honest.”

“An old car? Wasn’t she flying into Metropolis International?”

Kara shrugged.

“Yea, maybe there’s some weird, elite, vintage rental place us 99 percenters don’t know about.”

Spinning on her heel, Kara made her way to the living room to fluff the pillows on the couch. She picked up the last few books she’d forgotten when she went outside, too. There were a few things out of place on the coffee table—Kara grabbed a mug and brought it to the kitchen sink to wash before restacking the magazines, putting aside the older editions and more gossipy publications. One had Supergirl on the cover and, grimacing, she shoved it into one of the remaining, unorganized shelves at the bottom of the bookcase.

“You’re lucky I haven’t started framing your covers yet,” Eliza said. She smiled, watching Kara hurriedly wipe down the coffee table. “I really should start.”

Kara looked up, stopping abruptly from her harried cleaning.

“You save all of magazines I’m on?”

“I tried to save all of your newspaper clippings—but then you started doing so much, and outside of National City, too.” Eliza spoke like it was nothing, but Kara’s face held a kind of reverence she was incapable of truly explaining. Eliza was not her mother and she never tried to be; she never asked Kara to call her mom, never tried to replace Kara’s parents in the slightest. She never got upset or tried to have a conversation when she heard Kara say Eliza, my foster mother . But Kara knew for a fact that Eliza loved her.

It was always somewhat overwhelming to remember that. There were people on this planet and on others who wanted for nothing except the love of their own mother. And here Kara was, living because of the love of two. Eliza was completely unaware of these thoughts as she helped Kara pick up the miscellaneous flotsam of her life.

The rumble of a loud motor peaked in the driveway and then cut abruptly. Kara snapped up from wiping down a side table and fumbled with her glasses.

“She’s here!”

But the motor was off and Kara had yet to hear the tell tale sign of heels clacking up to the front door. She fidgeted with her hands, tried not to wring her shirt in her palms. Was something wrong with her hearing? Had she missed the opening and closing of the car door? There was nothing and Kara tried very, very hard not to use her powers for eavesdropping.

If Kara were inclined to throw her upbringing and general need to be polite and give people their privacy to the wind, here is what she would have heard: three sighs. The first was quiet, the kind that follows a lengthy but overall satisfying drive. The kind that escaped as the car settled into stagnation, the engine clicking as its parts cooled. The second was a little more indignant, recognizable by women everywhere who caught glimpses of themselves in mirrors and were less than satisfied with the result (this was followed by the quiet, sticky sound of reapplying bright red lipstick and the soft, quick brush of fingers through a newly redone ponytail). The third sigh would come later, after the lipstick and the hair, after the motor stopped clicking, after the car had settled in the driveway.

The third sigh came after these sounds—Lena taking her aviators off, the arms of the frames quietly clicking together, the groan of leather as she shifted her body in the seat, reaching for something behind her, the rustle of a paper bag, the leather creaking once more, and finally stillness. Until, at last, the final sigh escaped from Lena’s lips. It was the kind of sigh meant to steady and ground, something fortifying and relieving all at once.

But Kara—ever mindful of what she was capable of—heard none of those things. Instead, she waited by the door, standing and wringing her hands together. Eliza, from her study, tried not to laugh at the impatient way Kara stood waiting. She gave Kara space to stew in her nerves.

Finally, Kara heard the car door open and slam shut. She heard Lena’s natural stride given away by the sound of her heels on the ground. The doorbell rang and Kara counted a quick, mental 5 before wrenching the door open, just careful enough to not rip it off of its hinges.

“Lena, you’re here!”

Kara enveloped Lena in a strong hug as the other woman laughed, pretty and lilting. And then Kara was laughing too, just because she could, just because Lena let her.

“Kara, it’s only been two days,” Lena said, having found her voice through all that laughter and untangling herself from Kara’s arms. Over Kara’s shoulder, Lena saw Eliza emerge from her study. “Hi, Eliza!”

“Oh, finally, she calls me Eliza.” She stepped forward and also hugged Lena, rubbing her back as she did so. “Thought I was going to have to give you another lecture about calling me ‘Mrs. Danvers’.”

“I figure I’d save you the trouble this time,” Lena said, smiling softly when they parted. She cleared her throat nervously and pushed a paper gift bag into Eliza’s hands. “And you know I can never show up empty handed.”

Eliza looked put out for a moment.

“Lena, really, you don’t need to trouble yourself over me,” she said. Inside was an expensive bottle of red wine Eliza loved, a recently released novel she’d mentioned to Lena the last time they talked, and a bound copy of L-Corp’s latest biomedical breakthrough, complete with schematics and trials.

“I don’t,” Lena said. She fidgeted with a ring on her finger, twisting it against her skin. “I mean—it’s no trouble at all. And if being a Luthor taught me a single thing it’s to never show up to someone else’s home empty-handed.”

Eliza’s smile was kind and soft as she led Lena into the house.

“Kara, get Lena’s bags for her, won’t you?” Eliza called over her shoulder, but Kara was already halfway down the driveway doing what she was told. “Come on, let’s share this bottle, then. It’s not too early in the day, is it?”

Lena left her heels at the foyer and followed Eliza in, listening to the older woman talk about a potential lead she had during a lab session the other week. Expertly, Eliza opened the bottle of red with a few twists of her wrists without ever breaking conversation with Lena—something she’d only ever seen Alex and professional sommeliers do with the same practiced ease. Kara came into the kitchen just in time to receive a glass and Lena gently knocked her own against Kara’s before taking a sip.

They caught up for a few minutes, Kara only interjecting when she felt inclined to, but mostly she stood by Lena’s side and listened as she and Eliza excitedly discussed varying practices and lab junk. Lena leaned against the counter, her black hair still in a slightly windswept ponytail. Kara watched them talk, watched the way Lena’s red lipstick came off a bit with every sip of her wine, watched the scrunch of Lena’s nose as she laughed at something Eliza said, watched the crow’s feet of Eliza’s eyes deepen in mirth.

Kara felt suddenly that this was a perfect moment in her otherwise imperfect life.

She knew immediately that she had to ruin it.

--

“Lena, can you come with me? I want to show you something,” Kara asked. She had an eager, expectant look on her face. Lena didn’t understand why she felt compelled to do it, but she turned toward Eliza and found a warm, encouraging smile on the older woman’s lips. So Lena went.

Lena followed Kara up the stairs and toward the balcony, where they stepped out into the warm sunshine. Kara closed the door softly behind her and held her hand out expectantly. Immediately, Lena placed her hand gently into Kara’s like it was natural; like they held hands all the time; like they spent a lifetime of Kara putting her hand out for Lena as she stepped out of the car or through a door or into a crowded space. Like Lena had always let Kara lead the way.

“Lena.” Kara paused, looking out at the bay. The sun was high, its rays bright in Lena’s eyes as she squinted. Kara didn’t look at her but she squeezed Lena’s hand. “Do you trust me?”

Lena could smell the salt and pine in the air. It reminded her of boarding school—scraped knees and chapped lips and some other girl’s favorite flavor of lip balm.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a time when I did not trust you, Kara.”

The corners of Kara’s mouth crept upward, just a little, as if she were afraid of what it would mean if she smiled fully.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Kara said. Her other hand tapped against the telescope on the porch. “But I think you already have an idea what it is.”

Lena said nothing, tried to assume nothing; she tried to imagine that she was water and somewhere outside of herself there was a something to be listened to just on the outskirts of her hearing so that she wouldn’t have to think about what she did or did not know.

“Can I hug you?” Kara asked. It was not what Lena expected. She smiled softly anyway.

“Of course,” she said, and she opened her arms. Kara stepped into Lena’s space and wrapped her arms around her delicately, intimately. Lena could smell sunshine and warmth, fresh laundry and a familiar brand of fabric softener. Kara smelled like the perfect summer day, like a childhood memory that still made her smile.

“Can you place your feet on mine, please?”

Again, it was a strange and unexpected request, but Lena had a feeling that Kara was trying to build her up to the thing between them in her own way, so she did what Kara requested. She hated touching her bare feet to someone else’s (not that it was a particularly common occurrence); it was something she always thought as unhygienic. Nonetheless, she wiggled her toes against the bones in Kara’s feet and felt as much as she heard Kara giggle at the action.

Kara squeezed, just a little, just enough, and then, suddenly, they were floating. Lena blinked down at their feet and saw the wooden porch move further and further away. Kara floated them up to the side of the house where the roof made a bit of a ledge so that they could stand. Letting go, Kara fidgeted with her hands briefly before she reached up and took her glasses off. She wrapped the frames in Lena’s palm.

From that spot on the roof, Lena could just make out the sound of waves on the shore of the bay.

“My mother’s name was Alura,” Kara started. She looked up at a point just above Lena’s head. For a moment, Lena couldn’t tell whether the gesture resembled coaxing a memory into the present or fighting tears from falling. Perhaps it was both. “And I am 53 years old.”

Lena played idly with Kara’s fingers, hoping the movement would embolden Kara to continue in this funny way of hers. She said nothing, merely waited for Kara to tell her more.

“English isn’t my first language and I have claustrophobia,” Kara continued. She looked down at their hands. She worried her lip between her teeth. “I’ve been to 7 planets, including this one, and I am not human.”

She let go of Lena’s hands and slowly let her hair down from its ponytail.

“My name is Kara Zor-El,” she said, when she was done. She slipped the hair tie on her wrist. “And I am the last daughter of a planet called Krypton. But on this planet, I’m known as Supergirl.”

Leaves rustled against one another like waves lapping against the shore. Lena took the glasses in her palm and unfolded the arms. Very carefully, she put them on Kara’s face and pushed against the bridge until it the settled there. Kara blinked once.

“Hello, Supergirl,” Lena said. “Welcome to Earth.”

They stood there like that for a moment. Lena listened to the leaves and the water and Kara focused on Lena’s eyes, her face, her heartbeat. Everything was steady, calm.

“Are you mad?”

Lena chuckled.

“Kara, do I look mad?”

“No,” Kara said slowly, measuring her words. “But you could be mad. And if you were mad, I would understand. You’re allowed to be mad at me, if that’s how you felt.”

“Kara, I’m not mad,” Lena said, touching Kara’s arm gently. “Maybe at some point I could have been, but I’m not right now.”

“I just… I always felt like you didn’t want to know,” Kara explained. “Like if I said it out loud or you said it out loud it would make it too real and something would change between us.”

“What made you think things between us would change?” Lena asked. She reached up and took the glasses off of Kara’s face again, fingers brushing gently against her cheek as she did so. Lena tilted her head, studying Kara as if she were seeing her for the very first time.

“It’s just—if—if you had asked me… I would have told you the truth,” Kara said. And it was almost adorable, the way that she looked like a guilty child, the protruding lip drawn down into a pout like a much practiced expression for sincerity, meant to barter for sympathy.

“I think I always knew that,” Lena said. “Which is why I never asked.”

“But why didn’t you ask?”

Lena shrugged a shoulder. “Sometimes it felt like you didn’t want me to know.”

“Oh.”

Kara went to reach for her glasses, to fidget nervously as Lena had so often seen, but her frames were no longer on her face. Awkwardly, Kara seemed to realize that and let her hand fall. Lena held her glasses out for her, offering, but Kara shook her head. She opened her mouth in an attempt to speak but she either didn’t have the words or could not find the right ones at the moment. Lena watched her take a deep breath and start over.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“Don’t apologize,” Lena said. “I’m sorry I let you think that things would change between us if I knew the truth.”

Kara worried her lip between her teeth. The light of the sun seemed caught in the bright blue of Kara’s eyes, unencumbered by the lenses of her glasses. Lena enjoyed reading. She was a voracious reader when she had the free time, which wasn’t often. She’d probably read a hundred different metaphors for blue eyes in her lifetime. But she felt as if she’d been struck dumb;  all Lena could think was that Kara’s eyes were so blue .

“Sometimes,” Kara started. “I liked assuming that… that things would be different if you knew. Because you let me be whatever version of me I liked the most that day.” She licked her lips and shifted forward. “When I’m angry or sad, you aren’t afraid of me the way that Alex or Winn get because they’ve seen me rip a steel beam in two. And when I’m happy, you don’t worry about the other parts of my life that I might be ignoring, like how James does, because he’s seen me compartmentalize.”

Lena reached for Kara’s hands again.

“But—but I think I was hurting you, too, by not telling you the truth.” Kara sighed. She turned Lena’s hands over in her own and let her thumbs run idly against the lines in Lena’s palms, eyeing her glasses in one hand, almost skeptical. “If Supergirl went missing, I went missing. And you accepted every excuse I had.”

It was Lena’s turn to hug Kara. She wrapped her arms around Kara’s middle and slipped her hands up Kara’s back before she rested her cheek against Kara’s collarbone. Kara sighed into it and Lena allowed herself a small smile.

“I worried about you,” she whispered, barely audible. She felt Kara’s hands wrap around her shoulders. Lena hesitated for a moment. She could hear Kara’s heartbeat through her chest. “And when you still didn’t tell me, maybe then I was mad, but mostly I just worried.”

They stood there on the roof like that, embracing each other because it was comforting and warm and right and maybe Lena felt a little bit like she was finally holding one whole person, instead of miscellaneous pieces of a puzzle she wasn’t quite sure she could put together.

“Alex had a contingency plan,” Kara said. “If you ever decided to stomp your way into the DEO.”

Lena smiled against Kara’s shoulder.

“I thought about doing it.” She unravelled herself from Kara before unfolding the arms of Kara’s frames and placing them on top of her head, nestled in her blonde hair. Lena squinted at her. “You look remarkable for being 53.”

Kara laughed then, the sound like windchimes to Lena’s ears.

“April 23rd,” Lena said, suddenly. She smiled at the confused look on Kara’s face. “My birthday. Two years ago you asked me what my birthday was and I avoided telling you. Everyone thinks it’s January 3rd—but that’s the day Lionel brought me home to the Luthor Manor and it’s what the press stuck with.”

“You let me give you presents on that day!”

“And I kept telling you not to,” Lena laughed until it petered off with a sigh. She looked at Kara seriously. “My birth certificate says my mother’s name was Catriona. I’ve been on and off antidepressants since I was 16. The first girl I ever kissed wore peach-flavored lip balm.”

Kara’s eyes widened slightly at the last one, but Lena pressed on.

“Almost everything there is to know about me can be found on the internet in one way, shape, or form, except for those things. So,” Lena trailed off. She shrugged a shoulder. It wasn’t much—it’s not like she could offer Kara her own life altering secret, but she didn’t quite know how to express that without saying it explicitly. “I’m just Lena Luthor, no alternate identities here.”

Kara smiled at that.

“Hello, just Lena Luthor, can you do me a favor and count to 60?”

“Sure,” Lena answered, scrunching her nose but not asking questions.

Kara was gone in a flash, shooting up into the sky and disappearing faster than Lena’s eye could follow. She’d seen Supergirl take off like that from about the same distance as Kara was just standing, but it was strange, to actually see Kara throw herself into the sky and know without a doubt that she was Supergirl. Lena shook her head and counted. She got to 58 before Kara landed softly in front of her, a paper cup in hand.

“I forgot about the time difference in Italy, but then I remembered this great cafe in Argentina that Agent Vasquez once told me about,” she said, handing the cup of rich espresso to Lena. “Oh wait.”

Before Lena could take the cup, Kara’s eyes lit up and heat aimed into the frothy surface of the beverage flashed and crackled for a moment. Steam rose from it when she was done.

“Sorry; flying so fast cools it off,” she said sheepishly before she handed the cup to Lena properly. “I know you’re not supposed to reheat espresso and drink it quickly, but I think I do a pretty good job.”

Lena took a sip. She’d say that she was less of a coffee snob than people tended to assume; she once had an ardent, heartfelt, and nostalgic argument in favor of crappy diner coffee with Kara. But she knew what good coffee was and this was definitely it. Could she say for certain that it was from Argentina? No. But the thought of Kara flying all the way there and back just to prove she could? If Kara said it was from the moon, Lena would nod her head in agreement.

“In case you need more convincing…” Kara held out a rough, black rock for Lena.

Lena raised an eyebrow. “Is that…”

“I probably shouldn’t do this so close to you.”

Kara floated away, just enough to create some distance, but not high enough to be seen from outside the perimeter of the house. Lena watched her grin before Kara’s eyes lit up again, focused solely on the dark rock in her palms. Even from where she was, Lena could feel the residual heat against her skin. When Kara finally had a bright red hunk of rock, she brought her palms together and squeezed. It must have been some considerable amount of effort because the tendons in Kara’s neck strained for several moments before her shoulders relaxed. She landed back onto the ledge of the roof and held up a shiny, transparent gem between her thumb and index finger, grinning as she showed off.

“Did—did you just? Wait a second.” Lena plucked the rock from Kara’s grasp and examined it.

“It’s ugly, obviously. I don’t have much experience with—uhm—precision carving.”

“You got me coffee from Argentina and made an uncut diamond in front of me, even after I already said I wasn’t mad,” Lena said, a little breathless and on the verge of laughing. “What if I said I was mad?”

Kara shrugged and scratched at the nape of her neck.

“I didn’t plan that far ahead,” she answered. Lena looked pensive for a moment, thinking.

“What about customs?”

“Customs? Like traditions?”

“No, no, I mean. You’re Supergirl,” Lena said. “You can fly and really fast, too. What happens if you bring something into the state or country that you’re not supposed to?”

Kara laughed awkwardly, a little high, a little loud.

“Please don’t give Alex any more ideas about how she can make me do more paperwork,” Kara said uneasily, though good-naturedly. Lena looked at her, exasperated and slightly admonishing. Kara put her hands up in defense. “I don’t do it that often! And I’m really careful!”

“I can’t believe I know that Supergirl could potentially be harboring invasive species of bugs just because she doesn’t go through customs when she flies across the globe on a whim,” Lena deadpanned. It was more to herself than anything. She looked up at Kara, her one hand holding a cup of coffee and the other hand idly running her thumb against the ridges of a newly formed diamond. Lena smiled and pocketed the gem. “Thank you for telling me the truth."

“I guess if you were really mad, I could’ve just left you on the roof until you calmed down,” Kara teased.

“You would put me in a time out?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time I put a billionaire in time out,” she mumbled vaguely. She gestured toward herself and Lena stepped close so that Kara could take them back down to the balcony. Back on the porch, Lena reached up and put Kara’s glasses back on her face properly, struck suddenly by how different and familiar she looked, though nothing had really changed.

Lena let Kara lead the way back into the house, down the stairs, and back into the kitchen where Eliza sat, glasses on, reading the book that Lena had just gifted her. She smiled at them as they both came down the stairs and set the book down gently.

“Well, we shared a glass of wine and I just found out Kara is Supergirl; and it’s only half past 2.” Lena quipped.

Eliza’s eyes went wide and she put a hand to her chest, clutching slightly.

“Kara is Supergirl?!” Eliza asked, incredulous and breathless, bracing herself against the countertop.

“Oh shit.” Lena felt her face heat up immediately and then Kara was bursting with laughter and Eliza’s face returned to a small, knowing smile, and Lena knew that she’d been had.

“Have you been sitting here waiting to make that joke?” Kara asked, halfway to crying from laughing so hard.

“Only a little,” Eliza said. She propped her chin in her hand and furrowed her brow, looking oddly like Alex in that moment. “You two—you need to get ready.”

“God! The wedding, I almost forgot!” Kara turned toward Lena with a smile on her face. “How could I forget?!”

It was such an incredulous question, all Lena could do was laugh. A lot of moments with Kara felt like that, where all she could do was laugh because she was allowed to laugh and laughter was welcomed, appreciated even.

“Why am I freaking out?! I can superspeed! Lena you need to get ready!”

Lena was being pushed up the stairs faster than she could move herself. It was a strange feeling, to suddenly (though not so suddenly that she suffered from whiplash) be moving and then deposited in front of the door to a bathroom. Admittedly, it made her feel slightly nauseous.

“Kara!” Eliza admonished from the kitchen. “You know that makes people sick when they’re not expecting it!”

“Sorry Lena!”

And then the door opened and she was pushed in with her garment bag before the door shut with a quiet click. Lena touched her cheek. She could feel the ghost of what might have been Kara’s lips against her skin. She laughed as she figured out the shower situation, but realized that Kara had only delivered her dress bag and not her duffel.

“Kara,” Lena whispered. She couldn’t help the smile on her face. “You forgot my other bag.”

There was a moment, just long enough for Lena to doubt that Kara had heard her, to think that Kara hadn’t been listening as closely as Lena assumed. But then there was a knock at the door, above the scatter of water against the tub, and Kara’s voice.

“It’s right outside, sorry about that,” she said through the wood.

Lena lowered her voice to just a breath.

“Thank you, Kara.”

--

Kara smiled to herself, back pressed against the bathroom door.

She had expected something less easy, something explosive and emotional. Truthfully, she expected everything to come to a head in the worst possible way—she imagined danger and panic, a tsunami of disaster come crashing through the life that she and Lena shared so precariously, suddenly demolished by The Reveal. In her worst fantasies, she’d imagined white walls and the sickly sweet smell of antiseptic, itchy, off-white bed sheets, and a heart rate monitor as the background track to her confession. Usually, she was in the bed. Less often, it was Lena. Even her pre-planned best case scenarios involved some amount of tears and quiet, simmering rage, Lena’s green eyes bright and dangerous like the one thing that could bring Kara to her knees.

Reality had pleasantly defied her expectations and as Kara heard Lena begin to hum to herself above the low drumming of the shower, she felt momentarily, but explicitly guilty. She presumed the worst. Instead, she was left feeling refreshed and clean. It wasn’t the first time she had the thought, and it wouldn’t be the last time either, but Kara wondered what she did to deserve Lena Luthor in her life.

Kara pushed off the door and made her way to the bedroom she once shared with Alex. Her attire for the wedding was hung up in one corner, steamed earlier that morning by Eliza who insisted Kara couldn’t just put the thing on with all of its wrinkles from being stuffed into a bag unceremoniously before Kara’s quick flight from National City to Midvale.

She did not get ready right away, however. Instead, she laid on her back in her old, twin-sized bed, one arm propped under her head, the other folded over her stomach. She listened to the water running through the pipes in the house, to Eliza’s skin against a page as she read, to the gentle breeze of an East Coast draft. Everything was warm and, for once, in its place.

She could hear Lena’s heartbeat from down the hall.

It lulled her to sleep.

--

Way back before Supergirl, before CatCo, before Astra, before Alex’s plane, even before Lex Luthor, and before her promise with Alex, and even before Kenny, Kara was a teenage girl, strange and lonely in Midvale in the early 2000s. Out of necessity, she’d taken to English quickly. Sometimes she had a strange accent and asked stranger questions and so she she kept mostly to herself. Mostly.

What nobody ever knew was that Kara hid in the bathrooms of Midvale Junior High during lunch. She hid because even then her metabolism was quicker than most humans and the enormous lunch that Eliza packed her everyday drew unwanted attention. So, Kara ate lunch in the girl’s bathroom on the other side of campus, opposite the cafeteria, where it was quietest and where other, mean-spirited teenagers and their threatening quips and their glances of disdain were far, far away (or, as far as one could be in middle school). It was during those lonesome lunches in the far away bathroom that Kara met Amanda Klein.

Amanda was the same age as Kara. Even then, she was tall for her age and lanky because of it. She had knobby knees, always scraped or bruised still, and protruding elbows that she often, clumsily, knocked against corners and doorways as she rounded the halls. The first time Kara met Amanda, the other girl was crying in the next stall, the stall that always sat empty on Kara’s right.

“Hello?” Kara called out, hearing what she knew was called sniffling—something Alex and Eliza both did after they yelled at one another, especially after Jeremiah died.

The latch to the stall door fumbled and Amanda appeared, eyes red rimmed and downcast. She mumbled hasty apologies and said something about growing pains before she sidestepped Kara awkwardly and rushed out of the bathroom. Kara, who (at that point) still had trouble deciphering what was and wasn’t normal between human interactions, simply went into her usual stall to eat and try to tune out what felt like an entire planet.

“Oh,” Kara said, as she walked into the far away girl’s bathroom and was met with tall shoulders and sniffling for a second time. Kara stared at the red-rimmed eyes and tear stained cheeks with curiosity. Alex got angry when Kara saw her cry and Eliza always hid it very well. “I’m sorry. I usually eat in here.”

Amanda sniffed and rubbed at her eyes with the backs of her hands, pushing away thick, dark hair from her face as she did so.

“You eat in here?” she asked, her voice wet and incredulous.

“Yes,” Kara said. She thought that perhaps she should have said yea instead because Alex was trying to teach her to be less formal. The concept of slang confused Kara and frustrated Alex who was only trying to make her new, weird sister less weird.

“Oh. Sorry.”

Kara tilted her head. “Why are you apologizing?”

“I just—it’s your space, isn’t it?”

“My space.” Kara repeated. She didn’t like the sound of it. “It’s the bathroom. And it’s the quietest place at school during lunch. Belinda doesn’t come here to make fun of me.”

“That’s good to know,” Amanda said. She stuck her hand out awkwardly. “I’m Amanda.”

Kara looked at her hand and knew she was supposed to shake it. It was supposed to be good manners. And she wasn’t supposed to grasp at the forearm like they did on Krypton—she was supposed to wrap her hand around Amanda’s and shake.

So she did, slowly and awkwardly. Her hand was limp and open in Amanda’s because she was still learning. It wasn’t that humans were fragile—it was Kara who was strong.

“I’m Kara,” she said as she pulled her hand away. Amanda looked at her strangely.

“Kara.” Amanda repeated. “That’s a really pretty name.”

Nobody had ever called her name pretty before and Kara thought it was odd, not quite making sense of the turn of phrase. How could a name be pretty? Things that were pretty were often things to look at. Music could be pretty, but in a different way than tangible objects. It confused her, but she didn’t mind the implication. It was her name; the name she carried with her from Krypton. The name she begged Kal-El to let her keep because she didn’t want to have to find a new name like Clark Kent when Zor-El was already to be replaced by Danvers. Sometimes she felt as if those two syllables were the only things she really brought with her from Krypton.

Amanda smiled at her.

That’s how the tentative, bathroom friendship between one strange girl and one lonely girl started at Midvale Junior High. Kara learned slang and teenage conversation from Amanda who never asked her why she was so strange or where she came from before she became a Danvers. Amanda didn’t ask much, actually, which was fine by Kara, because that meant she didn’t have to lie or provide an answer that didn’t make sense. But it didn’t mean that Amanda didn’t enjoy Kara’s company. And it didn’t mean she didn’t listen.

“Here,” she said one day, handing Kara a crystal-green CD cover. In Amanda’s swooping handwriting, the words Kara’s Mixtape Vol. 1 were written onto the burned disk. She shrugged a shoulder when Kara took it. “It’s just some songs I thought you would like.”

Kara could hear Belinda on the other side of campus teasing Natalie Kerns for the socks she was wearing.

“You have a walkman, right?” Amanda asked.

Alex had a walkman and so did Eliza, but Kara didn’t have her own. She had no reason to until now.

“Yes,” she said. “Yea.”

“Awesome,” Amanda replied. She smiled all toothy and happy.

The word that Kara would come to associate with Amanda was enthusiastic. Amanda didn’t just like things. Things were awesome, great, wonderful, super cool, rad. It was hard to find something she was indifferent to—even the things she didn’t like, she disliked them with enthusiasm. She cried, a lot, or at least she told Kara that she cried a lot. Too much. Kara didn’t understand, then, what too much feeling entailed. Amanda was emotional and bright and vibrant in a way that Alex and Eliza were not.

She gave Kara her first mixtape and then her second and then a third, and then she tallied off movies that Kara should watch with her sister or with her foster mother or by herself. Amanda never invited herself over and never presumed that Kara wanted to see her outside of their safe haven at the far end of campus at Midvale Junior High. In the halls, they passed each other as quiet children who silently and shyly acknowledged each other with the merest tips of their chins.

In the bathroom, during lunch, Amanda became one of the few people Kara would ever split a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with and when the bell rang, they would sling their backpacks over their shoulders and walk together until they parted, smiling at each other as they went to their separate classes. They spent a whole year and a half like that.

After 8th grade, Kara went to Midvale High with Alex and Amanda went to Northridge High. Luckily for both of them, Belinda went to Grover Cleveland High on the west side of Midvale. Though those two lonely girls shared songs and movies and books with one another, they also only shared a bathroom. After middle school, their point (or place, rather) of contact stayed behind while they moved on.

But they occasionally found each other in the most serendipitous and clandestine ways and somehow, always, in bathrooms.

“Kara!”

Kara jumped, nearly cracking the sink in half as she fumbled with the faucet. Her hands flew up to her face, adjusting her glasses quickly before turning around. Amanda had cut her hair: her thick, dark locks now just brushing her shoulders. She was still as tall as ever and Kara wandered if Amanda would continue to grow after 5’11”. It was their Junior year.

“I didn’t know you went to football games,” Kara said, after they hugged one another, because that seemed like the thing to do. Sometime between seeing one another at Midvale’s main library and the bakery on Main street, they became two girls who hugged each other in greeting.

“I don’t,” Amanda laughed. “God, they’re truly awful. But it’s on my bucket list of things to do before I finish high school.”

“Finish?” Kara tilted her head.

“I’m graduating early,” Amanda said, grinning. “Early admission to MIT.”

“That’s—MIT?! That’s amazing, congrats!”

Something blossomed and then burst in Kara’s chest at Amanda’s news. It was something like pride, almost. Something like jealousy, just. But mostly Kara was happy for her.

“Wow,” Kara breathed. She was impressed and… and something.

“I know.” Amanda scuffed her shoe against the tile of the bathroom floor. The football stadium roared outside, Northridge having just scored a field goal, tying the game. The bathroom was empty. “I’m glad I ran into you.”

“Me too.”

And Kara meant it. Because that something ? It felt a little like loss. And Kara had definitely come to know what that felt like. She glanced down at the sink—Amanda’s hand was on top of hers before it wasn’t, taken back suddenly like Amanda had followed Kara’s glance and felt embarrassed that she hadn’t realized what she’d done. Kara cleared her throat.

“I’ll miss running into you in bathrooms,” she said.

Amanda smiled at her, then reached into her pocket to fish out a pen.

“We still have time, but...” She stuck her arm out and thrust the pen toward Kara. “You could give me your address, if you want. I’ll send you something. From MIT.”

So Kara wrote Eliza’s address on Amanda Klein’s arm in an empty bathroom during a football game in 2007. Kara and Amanda never did see each other in another bathroom in Midvale before Amanda left for college, but Kara did receive mail from Amanda while she was at MIT. The first year Kara got 2 more CDs: Kara’s Mixtapes Vol. 6 & 7 . The second year she got Volume 8 .

And in 2018 she got a letter pressed wedding invitation in cream colored cardstock.

--

“ I have to face the truth/ that no one could ever look at me like you do/ like I’m something worth holding onto. ”

Kara woke up to the bed dipping beside her, her old stereo playing Death Cab For Cutie for some reason. She blinked and Lena’s face came swimming into view, peering at her from above.

“Did you get all excited and then fall asleep?” Lena asked.

Kara rubbed at her eyes.

“It was warm,” she said, sleepily. Then she huffed. “And you try making a diamond with your bare hands.”

Lena laughed before she got up and crossed the room, picking up the jeweled cases of burned disks sitting haphazardly on Kara’s desk.

“I came in to snoop after I did my makeup and you were asleep,” she said, absentmindedly. Kara sat up and stretched. “My old RA used to play this song all the time.”

“Amanda made me all of those,” Kara said. She hovered by Lena’s shoulder reading the labels as she flipped through each CD. “Belinda used to bully the both of us so we hid in the bathroom during lunch.”

“How long has it been since you’ve seen her?” Lena asked. She turned one over, Volume 3 —it had a track listing written in a pre-teen’s looping scrawl.

Kara thought back to that bathroom underneath the football stadium when she wrote her address on Amanda’s arm with a stray bic pen and how she was afraid to press too hard against the other girl’s skin. She placed both hands on Lena’s shoulders and squeezed affectionately.

“Years,” she admitted. “We went to different high schools.”

“And you both kept in touch?” Lena asked. Volume 5 had a handmade insert made from letters cut out of a magazine.

“Actually, we didn’t,” Kara admitted. “She graduated a year early and went off to school.” She plucked Volume 6, 7, & 8 from the pile. “I got these from her when she was away… I felt bad because I never really wrote her back. The first year going to Stanhope was really hard for me. Alex was—uhm—I just felt really lonely after making so much progress on Earth as a regular human girl.”

“The glasses and ponytail are a terrible disguise,” Lena said, smiling as she spoke. “The real disguise is how you could never guess you were a lonely, alien girl before you were Kara Danvers.”

“Thanks,” Kara said, tipping her chin up and placing her hands on her hips, a kind of smug and proud stance vaguely reminiscent of a certain caped crusader. “I’d say I’m a people person.”

Lena snorted.

“Hurry up and get ready,” Lena said. She removed Volume 8 from the stereo and put Volume 3 in. Dashboard Confessional’s “Hands Down” immediately began to twang through the speakers.

“Okay.” There was a rush of air in the room so forceful it disturbed any loose papers and fluttered one of Alex’s poorly taped posters before everything settled back into place just as suddenly. Lena blinked, glad that she’d put her hair up. When she turned around Kara was already dressed, picking lint off of the lapel of her navy blazer.

“Oh.”

Kara grinned. “I’m ready!”

“That’s… just so not fair,” Lena said, deflating.

Kara flattened the front of her khaki chinos, running her palms down her thighs. The dark brown belt and matching wingtip oxfords were a classic, conservative combo that looked fantastic with her navy blazer, a white handkerchief sticking out of her pocket. Her shirt was something more modern, a collared button down but with a small floral print that almost matched the print of Lena’s halter dress exactly.

“Best party trick I can’t show off,” Kara said, still smoothing out any lines that managed to sneak its way into her attire from her super speed. Her hair was up in a simple ponytail.

“Such a shame,” Lena said, trying to resist the inexplicable urge to tuck a stray lock of flaxen hair behind Kara’s ear.

Kara looked up, smiling at Lena as she adjusted her blazer one last time.

“You look great.”

Two sets of cheeks pinked, voices having toppled over one another in similar patterns of vague nervousness. Chris Carraba’s vocals dared certain, anonymous parties in the background for sweet release from their current plane of existence. Kara’s brain flashed forward through the lyrics of the song without her meaning to and she remembered something in her desk’s bottom drawer, hidden there by Alex the last time they came to visit.

“I told you the venue is walking distance, right?” Kara asked, bending at the knee so she could wrench the drawer open. It always stuck, especially in the summer and early fall.

“You did mention something like that,” Lena responded, watching Kara with a curious eye.

“Good, because I don’t like to drink and fly.”

She rummaged through a few leafs of paper before she found what she was looking for, pleased that it was as full as she remembered. The bottle was dark and oddly shaped, asymmetrical and almost sinister looking, but when Kara uncorked it, the contents smelled floral, light, and slightly earthy. Alex said it reminded her of a spring found in the woods.

“This is… uhm, well I guess it’s alien wine?” Kara said. “You can’t have any though. I mean—you could… maybe. Actually, don’t even think about it, I’m halfway certain it’s poisonous to humans.”

Lena laughed. “So it’s alcoholic?”

“No?” Kara wrapped her fist around the neck of the bottle and took a surly swig. It went down smooth and light, unlike a certain rum she’d been known to have on occasion. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. “There’s no alcohol in it; Alex tested it.” She spotted a stack of clean plastic cups left on Alex’s side of the room, she snagged one and poured tangerine colored liquid into it, showing it to Lena. “It’s made on a planet that’s sort of got fruits and then it goes through a process that’s kind of like wine making.”

“And… it gets you drunk?” Lena asked, trying to get to the point.

“Uh huh,” Kara responded before downing the contents of the cup. She paused as soon as she was finished, suddenly wide eyed and looking as if she were guilty of something. “If—I mean, if that’s okay with you. I don’t have to get drunk. I just thought we should have fun. Not that I don’t have fun with you if I don’t drink. I just remembered it was here and now you know about me and everything. So.”

Lena hummed and picked up her clutch, giving Kara time to stew worriedly in her own words. She pulled out a shiny flask and twisted the top off.

“I was worried you were going to let me have all the fun again,” Lena said. She tapped the flask to the edge of Kara’s empty cup, rose an eyebrow until Kara poured herself a drink, and then took a healthy sip from her flask.

“I can’t believe you brought a flask.” Kara laughed, wiping at her mouth again. “Only dads do that.”

“Excuse you,” Lena said, fake indignant as she shoved the flask back into her clutch. “I’m just thinking about being economical. I don’t know how they do weddings in Midvale.”

“It’s not a dry wedding, Lena,” Kara said. “You’re so…” She scrunched her nose, teasing Lena. “Snobby.”

Lena tsked. “I try to be economical and you call me snobby. Maybe I’ll stay at home and tinker around with Eliza in her office, instead.”

Kara huffed and faked an apology before they both bounded down the stairs, laughing, hands full of a bottle of alien liquor and a clutch of hidden, expensive booze like two teens heading out for prom. Par for the course of the metaphor, Eliza stood at the bottom, hands on her hips, glasses perched on her hair. Kara and Lena stopped suddenly, Kara thrusting her hand out to keep Lena from falling forward. They were breathless, caught mid-giggle.

“Should I take photos?” Eliza asked, lips curling up into a smile. “I can get the camera out.” She tilted her head and glanced at Lena with a sly smile. “Do people still pay for paparazzi photos of Lena Luthor?”

Eliza did not get the camera out, but she did snap a few shots with her phone ( for prosperity’s sake , she told them both) before helping Kara find an old, clean flask of her own. She spared them the lecture of staying safe in lieu of patting the flask in Kara’s breast pocket with a significant look that made Kara redden and mumble about not staying out too late. And then she pushed both women out the door and into the bright, afternoon sun.

Like a proper suburban mother, she watched them walk down the street through a gap in the curtains, convincing herself that it was just out of curiosity and not anything malicious, like spying or hovering. She wasn’t a helicopter parent after all. Eliza watched them with a kind of sentimental awe. They were just two young women with very old souls.

Social media and news outlets said whatever they liked about them and Eliza tried to pay them no mind. To her, Supergirl was her foster daughter, an unexpected love that she’d tended to the best she could with what she was given. She often hoped that it was enough.

And Lena Luthor? She’d been unexpected, too.

They turned the corner and Eliza watched as Kara’s mouth twisted up and Lena threw her head back in distant laughter.

--

Kara walked with her hands shoved into the pockets of her pants, shoulders hiked up almost to her ears, a slight spring in her step as they ambled down the lane. Lena walked with her hands clasped behind her back, which seemed uncharacteristically girlish but oddly right in the light of the autumn sun. They talked, but about what it was uncertain. Their conversation ricocheted at breakneck pace from topic to topic—one moment the subject was Kara’s true understanding of quantum entanglement, the next it was the concept of weather and how Kara once visited a planet that was almost devoid of it for it had no moons.

It made Lena dizzy with excitement and curiosity, now unbidden by a invisible, unspeakable wall between them. Kara was an intellectual sparring partner in matters of public relations, pop culture, and literature up until the moment she took her glasses off and told Lena her real surname. Though Lena and Kara could talk about (and have talked) about anything and everything, the understanding that Kara was not of this planet (Lena hesitated to utilize the more familiar turn of phrase that likened Kara to something… more ) seemed to unlock an endless corridor of topics on top of their usual affair.

The 15 minute walk to the venue was short and sweet and full of laughter, the touch of their shoulders brushing against one another stray moments spotted in between. The venue was actually a home on a large plot of land, owned and operated as a farm in its early history until it was renovated and repurposed as an event space in the sleepy suburbs of Midvale.

A large, white tent stood in the middle of the property. Beneath it was a sizable quantity of round tables adorned with calligraphed table numbers and place settings, each one holding a center piece of bright, summer flowers tied together with equally colorful ribbon. On one side of the tent were rows of wooden, white chairs framed in an arc for the ceremony and further onto the property a dance floor and DJ set were situated next to an empty building which was repurposed as the bar and restaurant for the evening.

Whispers of recognition followed Kara up the sidewalk as they neared a more sizeable crowd, but for once, it was not about Lena. No, those familiar hisses of question and then affirmation, incredulity and then reluctant, distant acceptance—they were about her.

Isn’t that—?

God, it is. Do you think she’ll ask us about Superman?

Didn’t you hear?

She works for CatCo ?!

She couldn’t be upset if she tried. Kara had always known that she was strange and unliked as Kara Danvers. Even being Supergirl she knew that she was strange and unliked in certain circles. It was expected. Sure, it didn’t make her feel particularly great, but she tried not to lose too much sleep over what certain parties in high school thought of one Kara Danvers. The Supergirl bit was a little more harrowing, but she’d learned to take it in stride and improve upon her image where she could in the years that she’s acted on being the caped crusader.

It was when those words and tones were directed at Lena that she felt a bite of aggression, a hint of protection.

Today, they were just whispers in the wind. Ghosts that Kara carried with her because she had always been strange as a child. That wasn’t something that she could take back, nor would she want to. It was what made her sister her sister and what made her Kara Danvers.

Perhaps it was the whispering of those ghosts that made her do it, but Kara stuck her hand out expectantly as they walked up the driveway and around the side of the house and she was both relieved and glad when Lena took it plainly. She felt Lena’s heartbeat through her palm, felt Lena’s pulse point through her skin—Kara was clocked into Lena’s heartbeat before she knew it and the whispers of old neighbors and spare classmates fell to the wayside as they walked together.

People congregated in the large, 3-storied home on the property, which served as housing for the welcoming cocktail hour. They snuck through the entrance, dodging older women who gave Lena glances as if they might recognize her from one of their daytime talk shows. The back of the home opened up with garage like doors so that those in the kitchen spilled onto the rest of the property as folks milled about, mingling and drinking, catching up on time lost.

Kara and Lena went straight to the bar where Lena ordered a glass of red wine and Kara a gin and tonic that she added her contraband to.

“Hold on a second,” Lena said. They’d stopped once they walked just outside of the kitchen and out into the afternoon light. Kara followed Lena’s gaze, worried by how overcome Lena suddenly looked. Amanda and her bridesmaids were taking group photos under a willow tree on one end of the property.

“What’s wrong?” Kara asked. Amanda laughed as one bridesmaid stuck her leg out from underneath her dress, posing happily.

“I’m such an idiot,” Lena said, breathing a puff of air, like a laugh. “Amanda Klein, the friend you had in middle school. That’s her?”

“She is the only one dressed as a bride here, Lena.”

Kara fidgeted with her glasses, suddenly wondering if this was going to be a terrible experience, but Lena looked at her with a smile on her face.

“Well, I knew her as Mandy, and she happened to be my RA at MIT.”

--

“God, Luthor! Are you chucking in the sink?”

“Fuck you,” Lena spat. A string of spit stuck to her chin and she wiped at it angrily.

“Girl, you know Boston doesn’t have garbage disposals.”

“Fuck off, Mandy,” Lena growled. She pushed her hair out of her face and felt a fresh wave of nausea roll against her stomach and the back of her throat.

Mandy laughed at her but cooed nonsense and started to rub Lena’s back with a flat palm. The warm touch calmed Lena’s stomach from flipping itself into the kitchen sink, but she still felt nauseous, and against her will she groaned as she laid her head against her arm, bracing herself against the countertop.

“You sound absolutely wrecked,” Mandy said.

“Like I don’t already know that. What are you gonna do?” Lena slurred, shifted her weight from one foot to another. “Write me up? Fucking—fucking lecture me about being a kid? I’ll pay you off if you’re hard up for cash, Klein.”

Mandy stepped away and Lena heard the sounds of her rummaging through the cabinet. Vaguely, she could hear Mandy pushing aside glassware and mugs before she found something satisfactory. Lena peaked from the crook of her elbow and saw Mandy filling up a plastic cup from Woody’s Pizza full of tap water from the sink. Mandy grabbed Lena’s shoulder and forced her up none too gently, before taking Lena’s hand and making her grip the cup properly.

“Drink,” Mandy commanded.

Lena rolled her eyes but started chugging anyway. Even inebriated she could feel Mandy watching her, could feel Mandy’s line of sight on the bob of her throat as she gulped down mouthfuls of water.

“Hasn’t anyone ever taken care of you before?”

Lena pried the cup from her face and swayed angrily.

“I don’t need it.”

“Of course you don’t,” Mandy snorted. “Psych majors would have a field day with you. Look, just because you think you don’t need shit, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t let people help you.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m serious, Lena.” Mandy reached out and tipped the cup back towards Lena’s mouth, trying to get her to drink some more. Begrudgingly, she did. “You’re a kid. In college. In a fucking Master’s program.”

“I’m a Luthor,” she said, gasping from drinking so long. She coughed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“I really don’t care about that,” Mandy said plainly.

“Yeah fucking right!” Lena pointed an accusing finger at Mandy. “I heard you and Angela Krueger talking on the first week about how you got assigned babysitting duty to the rich Luthor bitch.”

Mandy swatted Lena’s hand away from her chest and tipped the cup back towards her mouth.

“You’re right, I did call it babysitting duty,” Mandy said, after Lena took 3 more long suffering gulps. Her voice was softer around the edges, her shoulders slightly slumped. “But it was Angela who called you that rich Luthor bitch. Honestly, I saw your name when I got room assignments and stupidly forgot to put LutherCorp and Lena Luthor together. I just saw what year you were born.”

“Then you really are an idiot.” Lena snatched the cup out of Mandy’s hand so she could chug properly on her own instead of having Mandy spill half of it down the front of her shirt. Mandy smiled at her with a lopsided grin.

“I guess,” she said. “I mean, especially here, shit’s all relative.”

Lena paused her drinking to snort into her cup.

“Look, not to get all older, protective upperclassmen on you but—shit—I don’t know. I’m here if you wanna forget who you’re related to or what goes on in the world or whatever.” Mandy knocked her shoe against the cabinet of the sink, suddenly turned sheepish. “I had a friend do that for me once, so. You know.”

“Why are you trying to be nice to me?” Lena asked. “Do you want money? Homework help? Did someone dare you do be nice to the poor, adopted Luthor girl?”

“God, I now understand shaking baby syndrome,” Mandy muttered. “You’re 16, Lena! I’m just trying to be nice for no reason. Some people do that.”

The next day, Lena woke up face down on her own twin sized mattress in her single back on campus. She smoked a cigarette while perched by the window before she pulled out her laptop to sneak into the school’s systems with practiced ease. She was still bleary eyed and half-asleep, toothbrush hanging limply from her mouth as she worked around firewalls and safety measures and into the student records. She pulled up Amanda Klein before she could even scrub her tongue.

What she found was mostly average, boring stuff, really. Solid grades for a decently difficult STEM major and a few notable accomplishments for being a Junior at MIT. There was a list of extracurriculars Mandy participated in like Robot Fight Club and the oldest queer student group on campus—G@MIT. Lena squinted at that one for a little longer than necessary before she scrolled past to still more mundane details about Mandy. She was from some stupidly, boringly named town on the East Coast: Midvale. Went to Northridge High. Born in 1990.

Lena blinked sleep away and gnawed on her toothbrush. She knew Mandy was already a Junior. Lena tapped against her laptop, staring at the number like looking at it would make it ignite into epiphany, make her understand something about Mandy Klein’s motives towards her. It didn’t ignite in anything. She dribbled toothpaste onto her sleep shorts and huffed.

Three knocks thumped against her door as Lena finished wiping at her face. She scowled in the mirror, pausing, waiting to see if it would pass, but the knocking started up again, and more insistently the second time. She stomped over and wrenched the door open quickly.

She misjudged the line of sight on the other end of the door, ending up with an eyeful of chest.

“Hey Luthor,” Mandy grinned. She waved a paper cup of coffee in front of Lena’s face. Lena took it skeptically. Mandy had a pair of headphones loose around her neck, bleeding sound. Death Cab for Cutie crooned solemnly at a low volume. “We’re going for a morning walk across the river if you’re down to join—just me and a few girls from the hall.”

“Oh,” Lena said. She fidgeted against the door, drumming her fingers against the veneer.

“No pressure though. You’re probably busy.” Mandy smiled at her and it felt like one of those rare, genuine moments Lena craved. One of those things she saw from the periphery and wondered at. Wondered what it would be like to be a normal girl in a normal family. Mandy gripped her headphones, ready to put them back into place.

“Thanks,” Lena blurted. She could feel the skin of her cheeks heat up. “For the coffee and—”

“Quit worrying about it, Lena.”

And then Mandy winked and walked away, humming the lyrics to “Your New Twin Sized Bed”. Lena felt embarrassed for recognizing the words.

--

“Wait, you knew Amanda?”

“Yep,” Lena said, the word popping out of her mouth clipped and curt.

“Small world,” Kara muttered. “Literally, actually, Krypton was like 50% bigger than Earth.”

“You’re getting awfully casual about this,” Lena said.

They moved through the property, keeping Amanda and the bridesmaids in their peripheral glances the whole while. Kara could feel the beginnings of her inhibitions start to slip, slowly succumbing to the warm,  happy feeling of being slightly inebriated on a wonderfully pleasant afternoon.

“Sorry,” Kara frowned. “I just, you know, wanted you to get used to the whole idea of me being… you know.”

The laugh that spilled out of Lena’s mouth was bright and full, like an almost tangible thing Kara could cup in her palms.

“Kara, I think I got used to the idea a long time ago,” she said. “It’s just, you never know who might be listening, is all. I want you to be safe, despite me being selfish.”

“Selfish?” Kara paused their walk, fingers brushing Lena’s wrist to get her stop, too. “What do you mean selfish?”

“I—well—”

“Hey, you two!”

Amanda, no longer preoccupied with photo obligations, waved at them happily as she walked over, breaking away from her bridal party and laughing at a joke only Kara could hear. Amanda’s white dress trailed after her, blown against her body by the breeze, looking as though she were a painting come to meet them.

“Lena fucking Luthor,” Amanda laughed as she approached. “Holy crap. You—oh my god, of course you know Kara Danvers, she interviewed you. She works for you!”

She slapped a palm playfully against her forehead.

“Mandy,” Lena sniffed.

Kara blinked at her, taken aback by the posture she now saw, the transformation from Lena to Lena Luthor, 26 year-old billionaire and CEO. Lena had tipped her head, making her neck longer, her back straight; she looked as though she were trying to look down on someone half a foot taller than her, and she was succeeding. However faint, though, Kara could make out the imperceptible quiver at the side of Lena’s mouth, the muscles there twitching, trying to contain either a smile or a smirk.

“You’re still a god damn brat; I don’t care what CatCo or the damn Daily Planet says about you,” Amanda said. “Stop trying to pull sweet Kara Danvers into your vicious cycle of brooding.”

Kara opened her mouth to protest, but Lena stepped forward.

“I cannot believe you invited Kara and I had to show up as an unannounced guest,” she said, haughty and indignant. She folded her arms in front of her, let exaggerated disappointment wash over her features as much as possible. “And I thought I was your favorite underclassmen.”

Amanda rolled her eyes. “Is she always like this?”

Kara sputtered, caught off guard by the energy of the exchange, unaided by the foreign substance sloshing about in her bloodstream. She laughed, awkward and nervous. Amanda leaned in, smiling and looking conspiratorial. She stage whispered behind her hand.

“She’s mad because I used to write her up all the time.”

“You wrote me up twice!” Lena argued.

Amanda paid her no mind and continued to stage whisper to Kara. “Everyone else was afraid they were going to get sued.” Then she turned to Lena. “And anyway, if you didn’t just up and leave coasts with no way to contact you save for your publicist, maybe you’d get invited!”

“Technicalities,” Lena said, brushing Amanda off with the wave of her hand.

Kara looked between the two of them, Lena with her arms folded across her chest and Amanda looking smug. She imagined that there were puzzle pieces missing from the timeline of when she knew Amanda and when she met Lena that could have helped her make better sense of the conversation. The last she’d seen Amanda, Kara had left her in a girl’s bathroom underneath a high school football stadium. The first time she met Lena, Kara had come to tag along with Clark at L-Corp’s (then) new National City offices. She tried to make the two meet in the middle but couldn’t quite figure out how to do it.

She felt left out, somehow. She wondered if the Kara Danvers that existed between those two people could have fit into their memories of each other.

Amanda smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling, softening a little. Her grin turned lopsided.

“Time’s… super weird, isn’t it?”

“Something like that,” Lena agreed, and even she was smiling now.

Someone called for Amanda—the photographer was waiting with the groomsmen, all lined up eagerly, ready to take their photo with Amanda in some creative and perhaps dangerous way.

“Ugh, more photos. Listen, I love that you’re both here,” she said, throwing her arms around both of them. “I hope we get more time to catch up!”

Both Lena and Kara watched as Amanda jogged down the path, pretending to launch herself into the air as the groomsmen laughed, shouting that they’d catch her.

“So… you and Amanda—or should I say Mandy?” Kara asked, willing her voice to stay neutral.

“Like I said, Mandy was my RA at MIT.” Lena fidgeted with a ring on her finger, twisting it against her skin. “I was 16 when I moved into campus housing and you know I’ve never been exactly… friendly.” She said the last word sheepishly, like she was embarrassed to admit her flaws so plainly. She cleared her throat. “I was newly released from boarding school and my father’s will gave me unrestricted access to my funds either at 18 or upon arriving at university—whichever came first.”

Kara grinned, only to have Lena scowl at her, knowing that a line of teasing was sure to come. “So you gave Amanda a hard time.”

Lena tsked.

“She’s the one who signed up to be in charge of a bunch of teenagers. Some of us were just… more unruly than others.”

“Unruly.”

“I… may or may not have run into Mandy while I perused upperclassman house parties around Boston,” Lena sniffed.

“And you said you didn’t have a secret identity,” Kara teased. Lena waved her hand around vaguely.

“I was a kid at a very prestigious university with almost unlimited funds. I was bound to get into some amount of trouble.” A low smirk spread across Lena’s face as she remembered something. “Lillian went and made all the detailed arrangements for non-disclosures. Truthfully, I couldn’t have cared less about what was leaked or remained on the internet. As was probably evident of my behavior then.”

“Tell me about your rebellious years,” Kara said. They moseyed through the property at a leisurely pace. Kara could feel the sun on her skin and the rings of laughter from the house on the hill crept down softly to meet her ears. “I mean, if you want to. I didn’t—couldn’t really have an… unruly time in my life. Alex did though.”

When Lena laughed, Kara smiled at the sound of it.

“Not much to tell. I mouthed off and drank a lot, probably made a fool of myself too many times to count and did a bunch of things I shouldn’t have. I wrote a lot of papers hungover and spent too many hours in my upper division labs,” Lena said. “By the time I hit the research for my Master’s I’d learned to behave somewhat.”

Kara listened with rapt attention.

“I was just a kid who was mad at her mother and always in her brother’s shadow and mad at her dad for dying.”

“You and Alex have a lot more in common than the both of you let on,” Kara said.

Kara imagined a younger version of Lena, cheeks red from booze, eyes glazed and wild, starting verbal altercations and causing mayhem at crowded parties. She wondered what it would have been like for them to meet then instead of in that office with the floor to ceiling windows and Clark trying to catch Lena in a lie. She wondered if Lena would have tried to fight her off or ignored her like everyone else did her first year at Stanhope College. She wondered if they would be the same, if they would be friends, would’ve somehow been brought together like they were.

Maybe there was another Earth where Kal-El let Kara come with him when she first crash landed, where she had the opportunity to meet Lena as two teenage kids who hadn’t yet been hurt by family. Her mind flashed through the fully formed, fictional snapshots of that made up timeline like an old film reel. There she was, meeting Lena at a party when Lex and Clark were still friends. There they were sending letters to each other in college. There they were meeting during the summers to tinker with robotics. There she was, her debut as Supergirl. There was Lena, knowing the whole while.

Kara wondered if that version of Earth harbored a timeline where she helped save Lex Luthor. She hoped so. She prayed for it into existence in some parallel dimension.

--

When seating for the ceremony started, Lena and Kara plopped down into seats situated more toward the back, laughing together about something inconsequential, lost to the moment. Liquor buzzed through Lena, keeping her warm like an electric blanket, making everything bright and full. For Kara, the effects of what she had called her wine sank into her like an anchor and painted a neat tinge of blush on her cheeks.

The sun had just started to tip downward, casting the entire property into that quinntessential golden hour. Slowly, guests started to fill up the neat arc of chairs ahead of the ceremony. Their whispers of recognition had died down since the pair had arrived—some of the more smug guests continued to try to cajole their peers into gossip, but it wasn’t a particularly fun game for anyone involved. A few times Lena got looks of recognition and casual greetings; she earned herself a hug from Denice Ryckman, a woman Lena remembered to hang around Mandy’s room on their floor—she was the officiant for the evening.

Neither Lena nor Kara knew Marcus, Amanda’s husband-to-be. He was tall and classically handsome, but definitely goofy. He walked his aging mother down the aisle first, stooping to kiss her on the cheek before she sat. He rubbed his palms against his trousers as his groomsmen lined up behind him and kept nervously adjusting his bowtie while waiting for Amanda to join him.

A tear slipped down his cheek when he saw Amanda for the first time. The best man, who looked very much like he might be Marcus’s brother, punched him playfully in the arm when he sniffed and wiped at his eye. It was all very lovely and soft, the air so still every gasp and shuddered breath by a guest could be felt through Kara like a tremor.

“The setup of the century,” Denice said, midway through the ceremony. “They were too scared to ask each other out, so I had to create increasingly less believable reasons to invite them out together only to leave them alone!”

Everyone laughed while Marcus looked bashful and Amanda rolled her eyes.

It was the kind of thing that made Kara love weddings, the kind of story that made her think that the messy chaos of human life was, perhaps, the right way to live. She imagined that, at one point in its history, Krypton was like this too—imperfect and illogical and left up to chance and circumstance, before the guilds, before the Matricomp and birthing matrix, before the planet wide ban on divorce, even. She loved it, loved that Earth was accidents and mistakes and second chances.

She glanced sideways at Lena, catching that amused and pensive look on the other woman’s face, her green-grey eyes glinting in the sun. She thought about the culture of order and logic she was brought up in until she was 13 and how they lost anyway. Lena smiled at something Marcus said during his vows and Kara wondered if there was another universe, a place where they were reversed: a universe where Lena was sent to Krypton as the last daughter of Gaea, looking for a chance or a solution to save her planet or perhaps her brother.

“I knew you were it for me,” Amanda said. Kara turned her attention back onto the ceremony. Everyone was crying, sighing, feeling so intensely. “I don’t know how; I just looked at you one day and I knew. I couldn’t imagine anything else.”

In her mind’s eye, Kara envisioned her immediate future. She imagined waking up tomorrow with the unfamiliar feeling of a hangover and slowly making her way down the steps to find Eliza and Lena bent over metal parts, schematics, and papers at the kitchen island, lost in a microcosm of their own devising. She stretched further; saw her schedule into the next week, could see herself at CatCo, arguing with Lena via email over copy. She saw herself in her cape and suit, doing patrols, absentmindedly landing on that balcony at L-Corp.

She imagined a whole year—snapshots of her life flickered through game nights at Alex’s apartment, requiring Lena’s assistance for the first time at the DEO, a viewing party of Brooklyn Nine-Nine ’s season premiere in her living room, fighting as Supergirl, winning as Supergirl.

She imagined five years into the future. Half imagined scenes blurred together: a pulitzer prize, attending Lena’s TED talks, Alex’s wedding. She saw ten years—Eliza’s “retirement”, L-Corp’s breakthrough in energy, joining something like the Justice League.

In almost every imagined scenario and mundane what-if, Kara’s brain spit out a picture of her and a picture of Lena. Lena with her hair down; Lena with a scowl on her face; Lena tinkering with tech; Lena in that dress that matched her eyes. Lena standing next to her on the edge of every unknown, ready to jump.

Her hand was in Lena’s before she was even conscious of the thought. There was no reaction as Kara intertwined their fingers. She could feel the smooth skin of the back of Lena’s palm, the ridges of her bitten down thumbnail, her heartbeat through her skin.

She felt Lena squeeze, but neither one pulled away to let go.

Kara wondered how long it had been like this. How long had she gone where her mind just filled in the gaps with Lena?

How long could it possibly last?

“By the power vested in me by the State of Virginia, I now pronounce you married.”

--

Sitting at the circular table with yet another glass of whisky in front of her, Lena could only think of one thing: she was content. It was a strange thing to both feel like herself and feel completely unlike herself. Happiness was an accessory she’d only recently started to embrace, finally feeling like maybe she was in a place in her life where she deserved that.

Kara smiled at her over the rim of her glass. Lena noticed the flushed cheeks half an hour ago along with the way Kara was laughing now with the volume pressed up, just a little, just enough. She’d flicked a pebble halfway across the property just because she could (with a small Lena, watch this before she did it) and Lena laughed, couldn’t help but find Kara so amusing and wonderful.

“Hey.”

The guest seated to her right stuck their hand out, grinning in greeting.

“Hi,” Lena said before she reached past a display of flowers to shake their hand. “I’m Lena.”

“Dalia,” they replied. “Looks like you got stuck with the weird cousins.”

“So, if I don’t have a weird cousin, that makes me the weird cousin, right?”

Dalia looked pensive for a moment, their head tilted to the side, one eye squinted in thought. “You know what, you’re right.”

“I have a weird cousin,” Kara said, laughing. She shook hands with Dalia and introduced herself before continuing. “I bet he’d say I’m the weird cousin though.”

Dalia shrugged. “Maybe you’re both the weird cousin,” they said. “Maybe he’s the weird cousin and you’re the gay cousin.”

Lena nearly barked out a laugh.

“Oh—I’m not—”

“So how long have y’all been fucking?”

Lena snorted into her drink as Kara laughed way too loudly to be considered normal, her mouth wide in that panicked sort of way she sometimes got when she was caught off guard.

“Oh no. No, we don’t,” Kara said, her cheeks even more red than before. She was pointing between herself and Lena and shaking her head a little too fast, bordering on… superhuman. Lena could see sweat literally forming on her brow.

“Right on, sexuality is a spectrum,” Dalia said, nodding their head, nonplussed and seemingly immune to Kara’s ever growing awkwardness. “So how long have y’all been seeing each other then? Gonna throw a big wedding like this?”

“We’re just friends,” Lena said, cutting in so Kara wouldn’t have to fight through her inebriation to come up with answer that didn’t involve high pitched laughter.

“Oh. Oh!” Dalia’s eyes widened comically. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. My bad. I just thought—and then you two—wow I’m a dumbass! I’m gonna shut up now.”

They looked almost pained, their expression pinched and apologetic. Lena laughed then, she couldn’t help it; it was too funny to her, flattering as it might have been. Dalia ducked their head, embarrassed. The older woman on Dalia’s other side tugged on their ear and said something Lena didn’t catch, pointing between Lena and Kara as she spoke.

“What? No, mom, they’re not—I said they’re not together!”

Their mother rolled her eyes. “Well why the heck not, they’re such a pretty couple.”

“Mom!” Dalia looked over at Lena, panic stricken and embarrassed. “She’s funny. Right? Funny, haha! So how do you know Marcus?”

“Oh, we don’t!” Kara said, chiming in now that they were both flustered and embarrassed. “I went to middle school with Amanda and technically Lena is my plus one, but she knew Amanda at MIT.”

“That’s cool, you must be smart then! So what do you do?” they asked, looking at Lena.

“Smarts are relative,” Lena replied, surprised at the conversation’s turn. She waved a hand around vaguely, as if trying to waft into existence some explanation of herself that was most simple and least encumbered by connotation and reputation. “I do a number of things, mostly business related these days. Jack of all trades, master of none.”

“Sounds exhausting,” Dalia replied, genuine in their reaction.

“She works too much,” Kara said. She had a smile on her face that Lena recognized as thinly veiled mischief, like a kid with a secret waiting to upset a party. “She owns two companies.”

“Cool,” Dalia said, clearly impressed. “Probably the kind that make money, right? Some tech startups or something?”

Lena laughed at that. How refreshing. How refreshing to just be someone instead of all the faux recognition and assumptions that came upon being identified on sight. It was a nice, sort of carefree moment that Lena found herself unfamiliar with, caught off balance by the delight of it. Opportunities to play herself down were few and far between, after all.

“Something like that,” Kara answered for her, that grin still on her face. “Lena’s good at everything business and tech related.”

“Wish I had the brain for that.” Their mother tapped them against the forehead playfully. “I liked art too much.”

“Oh, me too!” Kara said.

“Kara paints,” Lena interjected. “In addition to writing—she’s a journalist. A good one, too.”

“Wow,” Dalia responded, their jaw slightly slack in awe. “You guys are like, real adults.”

“That’s the L-Corp lady,” their mother said, smacking Dalia across the back of their head with only a small amount of force.

“Ow, the what?” They made a face of exaggerated incredulity, rubbing at the back of their skull. “The L—oh wow. Oh man. Hey, did I mention that I’m a dumbass?”

The banter went on like that through the majority of dinner. Dalia was friendly and polite and seemed well versed in all things pop culture despite being incapable of recognizing either Lena or Kara on sight. But it set a kind of precedent for the rest of their companionable dining, which was fine by Lena. Her liquor addled brain wouldn’t have been up to posturing, even if she needed to.

Kara did most of the leg work as far as conversation went. Dalia and their mother were easy to get along with and Lena took a particular liking to Dalia considering their abrupt snorts of laughter every time Lena quipped out a particularly devastating self-deprecating joke. It was nice when someone took her brand of humor at face value, like she wasn’t an alien who only knew how to be human by observing other humans interact with one another. It was a funny metaphor to make. Kara, after all, had done exactly that.

And she excelled in human interaction where Lena sometimes floundered.

Needless to say, dinner was pleasant. Fun, even. Lena was entertained and comfortable and the laughter that spilled out of Kara’s mouth throughout was so warm and full, Lena thought that she could live in it if she tried. A part of her wanted to try, desperately almost. It was one of those liquor aided thoughts that seemed dramatic and powerful in the moment. But it was true, even if its existence was caused by an 18 year Glenfiddich.

When dinner was replaced by dessert, Kara’s delight was contagious. The rest of their table cheered as individual creme brulees and sorbets made their ways to the table. It was all so amusing, the drunk-side-of-tipsy Kara Danvers and her charm and charisma. Kara was a woman of layers, something Lena had always admired, even before she uttered that confirmation on Eliza’s rooftop (the one Lena had secretly thought would never come). She was always so… optimistic. And she didn’t have to be. Despite everything, Kara was Kara: brilliance and wonder and the light chime of laughter.

--

“Wanna explore that weird house?” Kara said, after dinner.

It surprised Lena, because she fully expected Kara to drag her onto the dancefloor. She’d even prepared a protest for it. But she said sure and they dodged guests in that open kitchen and went straight through to the hallways with pictures of the landscaping processes from the 80s. Lena was contemplating the cost and time of production of the project when Kara sprang the question on her.

“Earlier, before we talked to Amanda, you said something about being selfish.” Kara played idly with a bottle of beer, pulling at the label that had started to peel under the condensation. “What did you mean by that?”

Lena tried to rewind the last hour and a half but found the work difficult to do with all that scotch sloshing around in her grey matter. Her mental faculties were just a touch slower; her recklessness just a touch brighter. The tip of her nose was beginning to numb.

“You’ll have to remind me of the context,” Lena admitted.

“You said,” Kara started, tilting her head and trying to remember. The pink on her cheeks seemed brighter than during dinner and her glasses were slightly askew. “That you wanted me to be safe when I talked about… you know. And you said that I could never know who might be listening—untrue by the way—despite you being selfish.”

“Ah,” Lena replied, remembering the moment now. “I just worry. And I worry for good reason because not everybody has good intentions. But I do want to know. Everything you want to tell me; I want to know.”

She moved from one photo to the next, shoddy time lapse through greying, medium format photos.

“But I have no secrets of my own for you. Between my family’s history and me being one of the richest and most controversial public figures in the country, there’s not much you couldn’t find out about me if you didn’t already know.”

Kara contemplated Lena’s words.

“Our friendship isn’t contingent on weird power plays about identity, Lena,” she said after some time. She reached out and touched Lena’s shoulder with a warm palm.

“No, I know,” she said. And it was true. After 2 years of friendship with Kara, Lena had begun the process of dismantling the harmful notion that friendships and business relationships operated on the same terms and conditions. It was hard to undo that kind of thinking, almost like gene therapy. “I just—I don’t know. I feel like you trust me with so much and I don’t quite know what I did to deserve that.”

“You’re Lena Luthor! You’re my best friend,” Kara said.

And she said it as if it were so simple, like it was all the reason Lena could ever need, that anybody could ever need. So Lena let it go, because maybe it was one of those genuine moments that people had that she had always craved in her life and had never quite understood. Some things were just that simple.

They walked through more of the house and commentated on its decor and detail. Kara sipped at her beer. They sidestepped tipsy looking guests who looked to be queued up for the bathroom, giggling amongst each other with flushed faces. One of those giggling guests in line was Denice, and she winked at Lena as they walked past.

“So, if you ever got married…”

Lena groaned and rolled her eyes for dramatics.

“You always ask me this. Is it really so strange that I didn’t spend my childhood having planned my hypothetical wedding?” she asked. When Supergirl asked Lena Luthor about western marriage customs, she chalked the whole thing up to culture shock. But when Kara Danvers asked Lena Luthor not-so-slyly about dream wedding scenarios on multiple occasions, Lena had to think that maybe her friend was worried about her. Truly, it was just a defense mechanism: to ignore the plausibility of peak stability in her life like that.

“I just think you deserve to have that kind of happiness if it was something you wanted. And if it was something you wanted, you should be able to think about it if and when you wanted to,” Kara said. She shrugged a shoulder. Had Lena always been transparent in front of Kara?

She thought about Kara’s answer seriously, for a moment, blood alcohol content notwithstanding. She thought about the things she allowed or didn’t allow herself to think about or have or experience with a fullness that seemed to come so easily to other people. She thought about all the things Lillian denied her and the things that Lex inadvertently tainted when he went mad with power and righteous spite. She thought about the dark stain of her father’s figure as he blurred into her memories of him.

“Okay,” she said. “So let’s think about it now.”

“What?” Kara laughed. “What do you mean?”

“Help me imagine my wedding,” Lena said. She shrugged and waved a hand around vaguely. “What would be a suitable dream scenario?”

Kara blinked, then tilted her head. Her pink cheeks moved as she gnawed the inside of it, thinking. As smart as she was, Lena felt incredibly dumb in that moment, felt uncreative and unimaginative. She wasn’t being coy; she really had no idea where to start.

“Well are you having a big wedding or a small one?”

“Small,” Lena answered. Instantly, a venue appeared bare and empty in her head. Something with large wooden beams running down the length of the ceiling and slightly-distorted windows, glass having sunk just a bit from age. “But not courthouse small. An actual something.”

Kara smiled, pleased at Lena answer. “Okay, small. Full of flowers?”

“Probably,” Lena said, slowly, thinking. Purple hues cropped up in the imagined venue in her head dotted with white and bits of yellow. A bar at one end of the venue cropped up and Lena said as much.

“Okay, good! Flowers and an open bar at a smallish wedding in… early autumn, right? See? This is easy,” Kara said. She bounced a bit on her heels, delighted at the imagining of things. It made Lena want to try harder.

“Maybe I won’t wear white,” she said, struck by how right the idea felt saying it outloud. “Might clash too much with my complexion.”

“I dunno about that. You’d look good in anything, Lena. But sure, let’s say no white.”

“Some kind of pastel. Nothing too… severe. I think I wear that enough at work,” Lena said.

Kara smiled like she was really in it, like the imagination in her head could be real and true, like she could really envision Lena in a powder blue dress or off-white, pink-hued number walking down the aisle of a smallish venue with purple, white, and yellow flowers. The image in Lena’s head seemed like a vision into a parallel reality where things in her life went right instead of sideways and off the rails.

“Maybe you could do a costume change, too! Like through dinner maybe,” Kara said. “Speaking of dinner—new American? Italian?”

Lena laughed. “Sure, why not. And family style, too. Boring fish dish and everything.”

Kara nodded along, almost seriously, like she was keeping notes to be remembered at a later date.

“What about cake?”

Lena thought about a long-ish table shoved into some corner of the venue, but could not imagine a traditional, tiered cake with one of those plastic wedding toppers at the peak of it. No image of some mountainous thing popped up onto that table.

“I think… I’d prefer pie, to be honest,” Lena said after the scene in her mind seemed to take on its own narration and populated itself with silver tins.

“Sure, we could do pie,” Kara said absently. “And people?”

The fanciful setting in Lena’s mind had structure. It had bones of historic wood and high, vaulted ceilings. It had atmosphere—the vague sense that good food was being prepared close by permeated the day dream like a distant memory. But the scene was still and oddly empty. It had high-tops and flowers, low-tops without gaudy tablecloths, an open bar, and a dessert table. But it had empty seats. An empty podium in dark wood stood lonesome like an obelisk at the venue’s far end. Rows of empty chairs sat bare and open, like unpopulated church pews waiting for sinners.

Lena frowned.

Jack was dead. Her mother continued to elude authorities, despite Lena’s attempts at tracking her herself. Lex’s prison sentence had no end in sight, nor did she have any sort of hope for it would be shortened. For one brutal, self-deprecating moment, Lena feared that that was all there was in her life—graveyards and in memoriams.

She thought of Jess first. She’d have to think about the why later, but maybe it was the alcohol. Jess would cry when she was handed an invite, maybe. Or say something snarky upon receiving it, probably. She imagined Sam and Ruby smiling from the first row where family should be; Sam’s time-wearied eyes bright instead of shaky like they had been since… well, since. Ruby would be older, grown more into herself.

She pictured Alex there, too, sitting grumpily with her arms crossed in front of her as if she might have more important places to be (even in the daydream, Lena knew this wasn’t true and could pick out the slight twitch, the telltale sign of amusement in the corners of Alex’s mouth). Her mind made Winn a ring bearer before she could even alter the fantasy. He wore a bowtie and his eyes were red-rimmed from crying.

And just like that, right next to the podium, Kara was in a dark navy suit with a red boutonniere.

Lena blinked into the present, wrenching herself away from the odd fantasy—an imagined scene turned shameful conjecture. She hadn’t meant to complete her fantasy like that. She felt embarrassed by it, ashamed, somehow. It was an accident… but it didn’t feel entirely accidental. It seemed more like the answer to a question she had no idea she needed to ask.

“Lena?” Kara’s face was scrunched, eyebrows pulled together in concern. “Hey. Where’d you go?”

“Sorry, I…” Lena felt off-kilter, tilted as if she were still halfway between worlds. She cleared her throat. Her palms were suddenly slick. “I—I was trying to think of a guestlist. But all I could imagine were your friends.”

Kara smiled softly, the worried lines in her face smoothing out with relief.

“They’re your friends, too,” she said. It was true. Lena couldn’t say exactly when that had become true, only that it was, that it had happened one day and just became a part of her reality. The answer to a question she had no idea she needed to ask. The realization seemed to pry open something inside of Lena she’d never knew she’d been hiding.

“I need to get a glass of water, really quick,” she found herself saying. “I’ll bring one for you?”

“Sure!” Kara said. She was still smiling. “I’m gonna line up for the bathroom but I’ll meet you back here.”

Lena nodded and walked away on shaky legs, suddenly overcome and somehow overthrown by the lingering image in her mind.

--

Lena stalked back through the house toward the kitchen that opened out onto the property. She found it mostly empty—the party was in full swing on the dance floor. There were a few stragglers hanging about the bar, talking and laughing, but it was by no means crowded. She was able to flag down a bartender for a pint of ice water easily.

She flexed and stretched her palms as she sipped gingerly, trying to dispel some of her strange, wound up energy built up suddenly by her curiously imagined, hypothetical situation. It was such a little thing. She could’ve imagined anybody there.

She was still in the middle of unfairly berating herself when someone forcibly knocked into her from behind, clapping her on the back with an open palm and a fresh peel of laughter in her ear.

“Lena!” Mandy shouted, face flushed.

Lena’s mouth quirked upward and she took Mandy’s hand and wrapped it around her pint of water. Mandy’s eyes lit up with gratitude as she chugged down the contents quickly.

“Well isn’t this just backwards,” Lena teased. Mandy held up a single finger, still drinking, her throat bobbing with each gulp.

“In a kitchen, no less,” Mandy said, breathless after her long drink. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, grimacing at the sweat pooled there. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

“Are you?” Lena asked. She couldn’t help but be coy.

“Sure, I mean, that means there’s a big fat check waiting for me in my wedding gifts, right?” Mandy said, grinning.

Lena laughed, tossing her head back.

“I’m Kara’s guest! You’re getting a gift based on a journalist’s salary, not a CEO’s,” she said.

“Pfft.” Mandy waved her hand, brushing Lena off before signaling for another glass of water. “Say, you don’t still smoke those terribly expensive cigarettes you started smoking ‘for the aesthetic’ do you?”

“You don’t still drunkenly bum smokes off of people and claim you’ve never paid for a cigarette in your entire life, do you?”

“Not everything has to change so drastically, Lena,” Mandy said, dramatic face to match her faux-scandalized voice. In one hand she grabbed her glass of water off of the bar, and with the other she tugged on Lena’s arm. Lena rolled her eyes but went with her, looking smug as she started to undo the clasp of her clutch without much thought.

They rounded the side of the house, Mandy’s wedding dress hiked up her thighs as she toed about the path that led them to the front driveway, Lena tottering behind her on her heels. Lena unwrapped the plastic on a new case of Nat Shermans and felt suddenly overtaken by a nostalgic sense of deja vu.

“Shoot,” she said, opening the pack and handing one to Mandy. She looked up at one of the windows. “I left Kara in there.”

“Don’t worry. She knows how to find you,” Mandy said. It was the way she said it that had Lena eyeing her for a moment. “Lighter?” Lena let it go and produced her silver zippo with a roll of her eyes.

“Do you want me to smoke it for you, too?”

Mandy leant down, inhaling slowly to get the cigarette started, puffing blue smoke as she did so. Lena lit her own cigarette before snapping the lighter shut, letting that satisfying sound flit through the warm autumn air between them.

“Is that still the same zippo?”

“Mmhmm,” Lena hummed.

“Didn’t you throw it at Riley McGrath’s head spring term? At that house by BU? On Euston Street?”

Lena frowned. “You mean when she tried to fight me in the hallway at that party Andy Clements threw? Yes, and the corner’s never been the same since.”

She held the lighter up and sure enough, one corner was dented. Mandy laughed, bent from the force of it, tears welling up in her eyes.

“Oh yea, I remember. You were so little.”

Lena huffed, but didn’t deign to give Mandy a response. She listened to the distant music coming from the dancefloor behind the house—the DJ was spinning some party song from a top 40s list and the voices of a hundred drunk people screaming the lyrics rang through the night air. Laughter spilled out of one of the windows above them, something that might have sounded like Kara, but Lena wasn’t certain. Mandy looked up at the sound of it.

“So, you and Kara Danvers.”

There was no question, only statement. Fact. Mandy didn’t say anything further but the longer that silence stretched, the more obligated Lena felt to clarify.

“We’re friends,” she said.

Mandy hummed.

“She still looks the same. From when we were kids.” She ran a hand through her dark hair, her perfect curls from the ceremony had come undone. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and took another drag of her cigarette. “She’d never seen The Fox and the Hound until I told her it was my favorite.”

“She’s still got all those old mixtape CDs in her childhood bedroom,” Lena said. She watched Mandy tap on the filter, ashing her cigarette into the wind. A slow smile spread across Mandy’s lips as the information seemed to sink into her.

“I remember making those,” she said. Somewhere, one song blended into another. “Is she still innocent like that? Doesn’t expect people to mean more than what they just say or do?”

Lena thought about how her mind filled in the gap of her fantasy.

“Yea,” Lena admitted.

“Good. I’m glad. I was worried that… well it doesn’t really matter,” Mandy said, finishing lamely, trailing off as she inspected her cigarette.

“Kara never really said much about how well you both knew each other,” Lena ventured. There was an undercurrent to this conversation that she was trying to slog through the alcohol in her brain to get to the bottom of. There was something she was supposed to be seeing that she couldn’t quite make out.

Mandy glanced at her, never quite turning fully, but regarding Lena carefully, like she was also trying to figure out the final image of this puzzle that they’d both lost the box to. Were the pieces all there?

“Kara and I knew each other at very strange times in our lives. At least for me, anyway,” Mandy said. “I think she’s like that for a lot of people—there for them at their strangest times.”

Lena hummed in agreement. She was one of those people, after all.

“I didn’t really think she’d come. It’d been a long time since I’d seen her last but… you know, Marcus and I had one of those weirdly long engagement periods.”

Lena puffed on her cigarette and Mandy tapped her foot against the pavement idly. Mandy was nonchalant as she continued.

“He proposed right around… when Supergirl appeared in National City, actually.” She glanced at Lena with a lopsided smiled. “So I had time to build a guest list, you know? And I didn’t know if Kara Danvers, a reporter for CatCo, would have time for the strange little girl she knew in middle school. Not that Kara’s the type of person to forget about the little people, but you know what I mean. Don’t you?”

Lena leant back, her back against the front of the house. She blew smoke above her head, watched it waft away into the night, pale and slightly blue. It turned orange in the street light and then pulled apart like cotton candy until it faded from view. She felt warm from head to toe.

“But then I got her RSVP and I still didn’t know how to quite reach out or get back in touch so I just… never did and hoped I’d have time to see her today,” Mandy finished. She shrugged a shoulder and continued smoking her cigarette.

“You’d think after 8 personally curated mixtapes, a girl would get the hint about a crush,” Lena said.

Mandy snorted. “It wasn’t really a crush.” She tilted her head and looked at Lena, a strange, smallish smile on her lips. “It was like we were the only two people on the planet who didn’t demand answers from each other.”

“Does Marcus know you invited your childhood crush to your wedding?”

“Lena, you are so annoying,” Mandy said, laughing. She pushed her hair out of her face and rolled her neck and shoulders. “But anyway, you look good. And happy, too, which is saying a lot considering how miserable you always were.”

“I was a teenager,” Lena huffed.

“Sure,” Mandy replied. “But you know what I mean. It’s good to see you. And not on TV or in the newspaper. For what it’s worth, if I had to choose anybody I’d have liked to see you with, Kara Danvers is the number one choice.”

Lena didn’t know what to say to that, really. Smoke curled around their heads, reaching up toward the stars. A lot could change in a few years; Lena’s whole life seemed like definitive proof of that.

Mandy crushed her cigarette until it crumpled against the front of the house. She looked around vaguely before flicking the butt of into some direction with a slight shrug, something Lena remembered seeing many times in college.

“I’m gonna go find my husband and make out with him,” Mandy said. She waggled her eyebrows and Lena took a half-hearted swat at her, but missed. “Hey. Tell Supergirl she’s got fans on the East Coast, too, won’t you?”

Lena snorted and waved Mandy off. She watched Mandy retreat around the house, dress hiked up again as she stepped gingerly over the uneven ground. Half of Lena’s cigarette was left and she planned to enjoy the end of it. She brought the gold filter to her lips and listened to all the movement and noise coming from the house and dancefloor further onto the property. She couldn’t help the little quirk of her lips as she listened.

A laugh that was definitely Kara’s tumbled out of the house with a loud “oh!” to go with it.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad.

She took another drag, finding comfort in the taste of ash and tea leaves, a sporadic vice she’d let herself indulge in for the past ten years. The song changed to something more recognizable, one of those dance songs with the instructions in it that everyone across generations knew how to do. Lena tapped her foot to its rhythm.

There could be worse people to hypothetically marry in some fictionalized, parallel universe.

--

The lines to the bathrooms seemed exceptionally long. Kara found the first set of bathrooms on the first floor to be overflowing with people. The second floor was marginally better, but a line of people still curved around a hallway. She made a few friends who complimented her on her floral patterned button down and navy blazer. Drunk women complimenting each other while waiting in line for the bathroom was one of Kara’s favorite human interactions. Drunkenly waiting for the bathroom herself, she could see why they did it. It gave them something to do and was non-threatening.

It was also incredibly easy to find things to compliment a person on once uninhibited. The women in line with Kara had no shortage of things to compliment her on. They started with her attire and then excitedly proclaimed how absolutely darling the blue of her eyes were. When one woman laughed and reached out to pat Kara on the arm, she suddenly found herself fumbling her way through a made-up workout routine.

In ten minutes, Kara had seen one woman come out only to be replaced by another. There were 7 other guests in line. Sneakily, she tipped her glasses and looked up, finding a bathroom one more floor up that was completely empty. She untangled herself with what she was hoping was some amount of charm and made her way to the stairs. It was roped off. She frowned at it, debated getting back in line for a minute, then shrugged and hopped over the velvet rope.

The third floor looked like it was where the wedding party got ready that morning. There were clothes and bottles of makeup and hair product strewn about, hung off of chairs and tossed over ottomans. Hair dryers with brushes Kara would have no idea how to use stuck in the corners, still plugged into their respective outlets. She tiptoed past makeup applicators and mismatched sneakers to find the bathroom which proved to be just as much of a mess as the rest of the floor. There was blush on the mirrors.

“Kara!”

“Oh geez,” Kara wheezed, startled by Amanda when she swung open the door after washing her hands. “Amanda!”

Amanda wrapped her arms around Kara’s shoulders. She smelled like tobacco and ash and had a healthy blush on her cheeks to go along with her wide smile.

“You’re not allowed up here.”

Kara laughed, feeling her face heat up.

“I know, but the line was so long…”

“Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble,” Amanda said, smiling. “I was just downstairs with Lena.”

“I was worried she was waiting for me,” Kara said. She sniffed, scrunching her nose. “You know those are bad for you?”

“Yea, yea,” Amanda dismissed. “Hey, I’m really glad you came. I know it’s been a long time.”

Kara smiled and fumbled a bit with her glasses. She tucked a strand of hair away from her face.

“Of course! I was so excited when I got your invite—Eliza forwarded it to me because I live in National City, now.”

“I know! I mean, I didn’t—I didn’t know how to find your current address and I figured—well I hoped that Eliza still lived at that address you gave me years ago.”

Kara rubbed at spot on her neck, remembering how she spent an entire semester wondering how she should thank Amanda for sending her another mixtape while she was away at college. It seemed like an impossibly long time ago. Another, more simple life, perhaps.

Amanda stared at Kara for a moment, worrying her lip between her teeth. Kara’s powers felt out of whack. Not dangerously so, just dulled by inebriation, unfocused and uncalibrated. Wonky and loose, she supposed.

“Kara, can I… can I ask you something?”

Kara laughed, a little high, a little loud. “Sure!”

But Amanda didn’t ask anything right away. She seemed hesitant, almost ready to drop the whole thing as soon as she’d been given permission. She worried her hands, twisting her wedding ring against her finger. The movement reminded Kara of Lena and she wondered if Lena was waiting for her downstairs, maybe staring at her phone absently or not.

“Kara. I—does Lena know you’re Supergirl?”

The scene in front of Kara focused, as if her powers were activated by being called upon. Her vision tunneled and her hearing heightened to a level of precision she only associated with an intense adrenaline rush. She could hear a man’s wrist watch counting out seconds as she watched a bead of sweat roll down the side of Amanda’s face and watched the other woman’s eyelids flutter closed in slow motion. And then the moment sped up to live speed and Kara opened and closed her mouth a few times, imitating a fish.

“What? Haha. Supergirl?”

She grimaced. She’d never been good at improvising.

“It’s okay. I know. I knew you were her when you saved that plane.”

Kara fidgeted. She frowned, tried desperately to imagine where this was heading so she could cut it off and reroute the conversation into some different direction. She sagged her shoulders when she realized she really didn’t have it in her to lie to Amanda.

“Yes,” she said. She cleared her throat. “Yea. Lena knows.”

Amanda smiled gently. It made Kara feel small, somehow. Like she was 14, caught in the girl’s bathroom, hiding from an entire planet. As if by muscle memory, she could pick out the sound of water as it flowed through the pipes in the house, the voices of too loud, mildly aggressive people out on the perimeter.

“Lena is… Lena’s a good person. And I’m glad she knows,” Amanda said. She looked over her shoulder, down the stairs to the second floor, as if hoping to find the woman in question come bounding up the steps to meet them. Kara almost hoped for it too.  

“How?” Kara asked. Someone whispered a secret downstairs—it started a string of giggles.

“How’d I know?” Amanda looked around like she was trying to find the answer hidden in the mess somewhere. “I don’t know. But I did. Every time I saw that red cape… whether it was on the news or in a magazine—it was like there wasn’t anybody else it could be. Plus, you’re not exactly hiding.”

Kara touched the frames of her glasses.

“There are better disguises than a ponytail and some fake frames.”

“They’re not fake,” Kara huffed. It was besides the point.

“For whatever it’s worth, I’ve never told anybody my suspicions. It’d probably make me seem crazy anyway. Except not really—knowing you, knowing Kara Danvers, and then seeing what Supergirl does? What she believes in and acts upon? Seems pretty logical.”

Amanda shrugged like it was such a meaningless, innocuous comment to make. At face value, it probably was; but to Kara, it meant the world. It was the kind of validation she sometimes never really knew she needed—the kind of verbal confirmation she hated to want. It was the kind of thing only Alex ever really said to her, in their quiet moments or rough moments.

Kara thought about Lena. She was doing that a lot, today: thinking about Lena. But then again, maybe it was a normal amount and she was only conscious of the fact now.

“I had to ask, though. She didn’t give me a single clue that she knew what I was talking about when I was with her downstairs,” Amanda said. “Lena’s a lot of things. Complicated, as I’m sure you well know. But she’s a good friend. If you can get her to call you that.”

Kara smiled. That was something she could agree on without pretense.

“I’m pretty lucky.”

“I dunno. It might be Lena who’s the lucky one,” Amanda said.

“People might think that,” Kara answered. She frowned slightly, wondering how to word her thoughts properly. “It’s easy to assume, I guess. But I know I’m the lucky one.” She ended with a nod of her head, resolute in her declaration.

“I’m glad you guys found each other.”

Kara was glad, too. In the entire trajectory of her life, it seemed like an impossible thing that she would be friends with Lena Luthor. So many things could have gone wrong—it was a miracle that it went just right. Or went wrong in just the right ways. That seemed a more accurate statement. What if Clark took her in? What if Jeremiah hadn’t disappeared? What if Lena hadn’t been adopted? What if Alex had never been on that plane? What if she spent a year too little or too long in the Phantom Zone?

Despite the endless what-ifs, there was only what happened to be. And though what happened to be hadn’t always painted the brightest picture, Kara thought herself to be very lucky, all things considered.

--

Lena did end up on the dance floor. Or at least, when Mandy and Kara came down the steps, they somehow convinced her to do a round of shots and then practically dragged her bodily outside toward the dance floor.

She’d never been one for the crazy, kinetic energy that came from drunk people bouncing off one another and sing-shouting lyrics to songs they recognized and half-knew the lyrics to. Even (and perhaps especially ) in college, Lena was more for standing on the periphery, making sense of the chaos and understanding camaraderie secondhand. She participated, new the rules of a number of drinking games, but dancing wasn’t something that was typically in her repertoire.

Except there she was, struggling to catch her breath and bouncing up and down with Kara, with Mandy, with a bunch of strangers who bumped and jostled her, and they were all screaming the lyrics to One Direction into the night air. She had no idea that she even knew the lyrics to “What Makes You Beautiful”.

She found herself sinking into the feeling of inebriation, slipping past tipsy, and sliding home into drunk. It was this small pocket of loose freedom Lena rarely found herself in. Had it been 10 years ago, perhaps she would have found herself barreling past it, headlong into angry and hostile territory. She could feel her hair start to fall out of its bun but found it incredibly difficult to get herself to care.

The drunken scenes in front of her flashed through her consciousness like a movie montage. Clips of Kara with her arms above her head, hopping up and down played before jump cutting to lights spinning, Lena being twirled around by Kara as if she were light as a feather, and then smash cut to being properly introduced to Marcus, blushing when Mandy recalled some embarrassing story or another, and then taking a swat at her before she could finish. Lena was having fun, something so normal and ordinary that it seemed extraordinary.

“I take it back, cupcakes instead of wedding cakes are brilliant,” Lena said. She took the wrapper off of the lower portion of a red velvet cupcake.

Her heels were off, laying haphazardly by her chair, and her feet were propped up in Kara’s lap. Fast dance music still played in the background, its beat still thumping through her. The stars were out. Kara’s navy blazer hung off the back of her chair and she’d rolled up the sleeves of her button down—she’d redone her hair, pulling it up and then twisting it into a familiar style. Her cheeks were flushed.

“Why not both,” Kara answered with a shrug. She played with the bones in Lena’s ankle with restless fingertips. “Actually, just skip dinner entirely—serve only dessert.”

Lena laughed as she pulled the bottom off her cupcake cake and smashed it over its own icing. She took a bite of her cupcake sandwich happily.

“Sure, open bar and dessert only, I’m sure that’ll go over very well,” Lena said. She leaned forward, offering, and Kara met her halfway, more than delighted to take a bigger than normal bite that put frosting into the corners of her mouth.

Kara grinned, mouth full, icing on her lips. Lena thought she was beautiful.

“Alex would get a sugar rush and then need a nap,” Kara said. “An ideal scenario.”

“Who said your sister was invited to my wedding?”

Kara tsked. “You’re the one who said you imagined my friends at your wedding.”

“I thought you said they were my friends too!” Lena said, nudging Kara with her foot.  

“You’re right. But consider this!” Kara sat up straight, finger pointed toward the sky, ready to make a declaration. “You could just marry me and then they’d be invited anyway.”

“Well, that’s one solution.” Lena laughed, her head thrown back. “Another solution is I could just marry Alex.”

“Pfft, like you’d pick Alex over me,” Kara said. She latched back onto Lena’s foot, fingers flitting over her metatarsals and thumbs running along the contour of her instep.

“Someone’s awfully confident.”

“Of course I’m confident!” Kara said. She leaned the chair on its back legs and tilted her head smugly, smirking at Lena. Lena nudged just a little and Kara lost her balance, the chair tipping too far back. She flailed and Lena barked out a laugh before Kara gripped the table to stop from falling on her ass. Wood splintered under her hand.

“Oh my god,” Lena said, clapping a hand over her mouth and trying (though failing) not to laugh.

“Oh golly.”

Kara blushed. Her fingers had gone straight through the wooden table and her palm had crushed the edge. Every glass on the surface had been jolted, spilling water and wine across the linen.

“Kara!” Lena hissed, pointing down.

When Kara reached out to grip the table and stop herself from falling, she’d planted her feet to offset the momentum, but had misjudged the amount of strength needed (whether it was from being surprised or inebriated, Lena wasn’t sure). Her shoes pulverized the fake floor placed over the grass and the chair’s front legs had pierced the veneer.

“Come on,” Lena said. She abandoned the half eaten cupcake to get her shoes. She stood, laughing, and tugged on Kara’s hand with her own. “Grab your coat, hurry up, Kara!”

They sprinted away, one woman with her coat thrown over her shoulder, glasses askew, the other barefoot and breathless. They were both laughing and carefree. Lena remembered earlier that morning, her thoughts in her brother’s car, how she was the richest 26 year old on the planet, how everything she could have ever wanted was within her reach. She realized then, running barefoot through the grass, that she was wrong. This was everything she could have ever wanted.

Lena glanced over her shoulder, at Kara’s smiling face and red cheeks, the awkward way her glasses were situated on her face. Some part of her cataloged the way Kara laughed, filed away the way her skin felt against the night air as they rushed on. Like a cartographer, Lena mapped out this moment in its entirety, blinked and drew out all of its topography: from the way Kara’s hand was in hers, to the slight stumble as she ran forward while looking back, to the music still playing in the background. A scene from a parallel universe, here just for her.

They ended up back toward the dance floor, Lena stopping just short, wanting to put her heels back on. Kara’s body came crashing into hers but Lena felt strong arms wrap around her before she was being engulfed in laughter and Kara, who twisted their bodies to exchange momentum, before coming to a breathless stop, holding one another by accident.  

“Hey,” Kara breathed. Her face was close. Lena could see the flecks of gold in the blue of her eyes.

“Hi,” she responded. “Your glasses are crooked.”

“Oh!” Kara backed away to adjust her glasses and Lena bent to put her heels back on. When she stood, Kara draped her blazer over Lena’s shoulders. “Mind holding this for me?”

“Do I look like a coat rack?”

Kara hummed in lieu of an answer, smiling like she was so proud of herself. Her jacket was warm around Lena’s shoulders. It smelled like Kara, like it had been left out in the sunshine. Lena pulled it close.

The DJ turned the music down to announce that now was the time for the bouquet toss. Kara grinned at Lena who only rolled her eyes.

“You want to go catch it, don’t you?”

“Not if you don’t,” Kara said. She pouted and scuffed her shoe across the dance floor. “I mean, technically I’ve caught a bouquet twice.” She looked up, smiling. “I’m happy to stand out here with you if you’d rather not.”

“Oh, come on,” Lena said. They moved across the dance floor, through the almost familiar scene of people lining up, women getting ready to jump and catch and (perhaps) fight for a bunch of flowers. Lena weaved them both from the back of the dance floor to the middle, unwilling to elbow her way past a serious line of women who seemed as if this were the last, true obstacle to complete before their own weddings.

“This is a good spot,” Kara said, whispering.

“No cheating this time like you did at Joanne and Caitlyn’s wedding,” Lena said. She felt more than heard Kara scoff at the statement. Lena caught some vague mumbling about how she didn’t cheat that much.

Two women in front of her started playfully arguing and rough housing. Lena grimaced and took a step back, bumping into Kara’s chest. Hands found their way to her hips, steadying her as the two women were separated by other guests.

“I got you,” Kara said.

Lena watched Mandy take to the DJ stage. She was saying something, something about the wedding and about the guests and how she was happy. Lena didn’t quite catch it all. She looked at the wedding bouquet held loosely in Mandy’s palm and tried to imagine what it would be like to hold something like that and walk down an aisle. Would there be music? Would there be a live quintet? Maybe a quartet. How would she hold it? High? Low? Lena always felt like she had no idea what to do with her arms. Maybe she didn’t need the bouquet—but then what would she do with her hands?

Kara pushed forward, pressing against Lena’s back as guests clamored for a closer spot. The hands on her hips moved to Lena’s shoulders where they squeezed gently. Unbidden, Lena thought about it, the fantasy that made her only slightly ashamed, that didn’t feel so strange and foreign as she would have liked to think. She imagined Kara in a navy suit and brown shoes and then she imagined Kara in a white dress with her hair clipped to one side.

Lena imagined an impossible world where her life was just attending weddings and bridal showers, where she still worked in Research and Development, where she finished her PhD and sometimes had time to herself on the weekends. She imagined an impossible world where Kara Danvers was still Kara Zor-El, where Lex hadn’t gone mad with money and power and misplaced righteousness and vendetta. She imagined an impossible world where Clark Kent and Kara Danvers came to ask her about the fact that she hadn’t blown herself up in a Luthor Corp lab accident and instead made a breakthrough in renewable energy.

She imagined it all different.

And then she imagined it all the same.

Her fantasy of all the things that could have gone right in her life was not hers. It didn’t belong to her because it would never come to be. But for a moment, she imagined a future that could still yet be made.

And she wanted it. She craved it almost so desperately that she felt consumed by the thought of someday marrying Kara in a small-ish venue with rooftop access at the beginning of autumn in a pastel dress. The thought of it pierced into her core with the force of a revelation, washing over her like a solution to a problem she’d been fixated on for far too long. It was the relief of having found the answer to a question that nagged at the back of her brain.

An answer to a question she never thought to ask.

The want was so dire it was all she could think of as Mandy seemed to meet her eyes before turning with a grin and what might have been a wink. She faked the crowd out, causing a bunch of women in front of Lena to jump preemptively, and then tossed the bouquet perfectly. It arched high, then came down, and with all the athleticism a drunk Lena could muster (and even sober she would admit it was not very much), she jumped, caught it, and managed to land without rolling her ankle.

“You caught it!” Kara shouted over the crowd cheering. Her voice was honey in Lena’s ear, close and warm, and Lena couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled out of her mouth. Kara hugged her and Lena felt her feet lift of the ground, and the whole world spun. Vaguely, she was aware that women around them were congratulating them both, as if Kara had helped her catch it, too.

They could think what they liked.

Mandy waved from the stage, a peculiar kind of smile on her face. Lena grinned and held the bouquet aloft while Kara laughed, nudging her forehead against Lena’s.

The thing about the future was that it still had yet to occur.

--

“Are you sure you don’t need your jacket back?”

“No, it’s okay. I run pretty hot.”

Kara felt Lena chuckle against her. It was late. The party had wound down significantly and most of the attendees had hopped into called cars or their pre-arranged hotel shuttles. A few designated drivers milled about, trying to stifle yawns behind hands as their friends attempted to gather their wits for their departure.

The DJ played something soft, winding down the evening as best he could, trying to segue everyone into finally seeing themselves out. There was guitar in there, somewhere, and maybe lyrics, too, but Kara wasn’t really paying attention. Lena’s feet were on hers ( I’m terrible at dancing, Kara ) and she was trying to concentrate on swaying with the right amount of indifference while still remaining vaguely within the confines of tempo.

Lena was pressed into her, drunk and tired, loose in a way that showed her age, like when they walked to the venue in the sun and Lena had her hands behind her back. Kara, too, felt loose and drunk. Exhaustion was folded in there, somewhere, but it was a good kind of tired.

She moved them across the dance floor in a lazy pattern, no real rhyme or reason for their path. Every once in a while, Lena would squeeze Kara’s hand or tighten her grip around Kara’s waist, like she was checking to make sure Kara was still there. Kara could hear Lena’s heartbeat, smooth and steady. It was the one thing that cut through the hazy feeling of being inebriated.

“I had fun today,” Lena said. It was a whisper against Kara’s cheek.

“Me too,” she replied. “Small world.”

“Small universe.”

Kara hummed in agreement, thinking about the little miracles of timing that had put her here.

“Take me home?” Lena asked. The hand in Kara’s palm squeezed.

“Sure,” Kara said. She pulled away, grinning. “I’ll give you a lift back to my place.” She turned, back to Lena, and bent slightly. “Hop on.”

Lena laughed but she did as requested, climbing carefully onto Kara’s bent back and looping her arms over Kara’s shoulders. Kara stood easily, hands gripped to the skin of Lena’s thighs, her dress hiked to accommodate. Kara felt the push of air blow past her ear as Lena sighed.

They left the property relatively unnoticed by those who remained. They stopped by their table so Lena could pick up her clutch and the bouquet before Amanda and Marcus waved them off, too drunk and in love to leave their spots for a proper goodbye, but they both caught Amanda’s wink before Kara walked them off street-side.

The night air was cool and the streets were quiet. Kara could practically feel Lena’s heartbeat through her chest, pressed against her back. Street lamps threw cascades of orange down the avenue, illuminating their path in measured spotlights. Kara floated a few inches off the ground, hovered just over the pavement, lest some unexpected car turned the corner.

“I thought you said you don’t like to drink and fly.”

“I’d say we’re less flying and more hovering,” Kara said. She felt Lena shift, probably craning her neck over Kara’s shoulder to see for herself. Lena’s arms wrapped tight around Kara’s shoulders and Kara felt the soft press of Lena’s lips to the side of her head. The bouquet Lena had caught dangled in front of her, bumping softly against her chest or shoulder intermittently.

“Thanks for the ride,” she murmured.

“Always using my powers for good,” Kara said. She felt Lena huff a laugh.

They glided on home in the quiet of the night, like they were the only two souls on the planet alive and awake.

“Hey Kara?” Lena’s voice was small and soft, as if speaking too loudly would break their bubble and let the outside world come crashing in.  

Kara hummed. She heard Lena inhale, try to speak once, then twice. She could hear the soft press of Lena’s lips, the wet sound she made when her mouth opened, and then nothing.

“What’s wrong?” Kara asked.

Lena’s answer didn’t come immediately, but she got to it, eventually.

“Nothing’s wrong, actually. Everything’s—I wanted to tell you that. But I couldn’t figure out how to say it. Everything’s fine and I’m just really happy.”

“I’m happy, too,” Kara said. She smiled even though she knew Lena couldn’t see it. “You being happy makes me happy.”

The little puff of air that escaped Lena’s mouth could’ve been a scoff. Kara wasn’t quite sure. She was sure of the way Lena shifted, the way she pressed against Kara as if trying to find home in the way their bodies slotted against one another. She was sure of the way Lena held on tightly, something heavier than just a hug, than just holding on. She was sure of the way Lena pressed her forehead to the side of Kara’s face.

Kara was never quite sure of much—a fact that she was often reluctant to admit. There were things she knew for certain, things she’d never forgotten like advanced mathematics that were still theoretical according to Earth’s standards. She knew for certain that the yellow sun gifted her the strength she used to help other people (and she knew for certain that she could tear the planet in half if she ever wanted, too). She knew for certain that Alex would always be there for her and that Eliza loved her. That Clark was sorry, even though he’d never said it. That her parents were more complicated people than her 13 year-old self imagined them to be.

But there were things she was never quite sure of. She was never quite sure of how hard she should throw a wad of paper to make it into a trash bin (she could catch a rotating helicopter from falling out of the sky, but somehow the crumpled ball of paper was always her demise). Or how old a human under four feet tall was exactly. Or whether or not love was something that could be measured. Or if people meant more than what they said or what they did.

Or if she ever meant more than what she said or what she did.

Sometimes, she felt a certain way and did certain things, and if anybody had ever thought to ask, she would say that she had no idea why she felt that way or did those things. Alex said that was very human of her. But it was one of those things that made her feel alien. Like there was an instruction manual to this planet that she hadn’t gotten when she landed. Alex said that was very human of her, too.

When Kara was with Lena she knew that there were things she would never be quite certain of. And that was okay. It was the kind of uncertainty that helped her believe that anything was possible. That everything was possible. That it was possible to mean more than what she said or what she did without really knowing why or how.

“What’s with the car?” Kara asked as she hovered them down the street, Eliza’s home coming into view around the corner, and Lena’s black car glinting in the driveway.

“It was my brother’s,” Lena answered. “He never let me drive it and Lillian hated it because he bought it with his money. The first salary he ever collected for himself, he bought that with.”

“And he gave it to you?”

“Not exactly,” Lena said. She laughed, like there was a punchline to this joke she was telling. “The entire Luthor Estate is mine. That and everything on it. The car was on it.”

“You went back home?”

“No,” Lena said. She sighed. “I haven’t set foot in that house in years. The garage, though, is adjacent to the house. So technically, yes, I was on the property of what I once called home. But really, I haven’t been back.”

“What’s it like?”

Lena hummed, thinking. “Old. And imposing. There’s a library and too many bedrooms. Sort of everything you could imagine for the Luthors.”

“Anything surprising?”

“A garden that I loved. And a swimming pool Lillian would sunbathe by. How ‘bout you? What was home like?”

“Old. And imposing.” Kara laughed. “Krypton built upward instead of outward. Or maybe that’s just what I remember. My family was very old and well-respected. My father had a lab that took up one floor and my mother had an office that took up another.”

“Your father was an engineer?”

“I don’t know,” Kara said. “I used to think he was just a scientist. But I think maybe he was also an engineer.”

“And your mother?”

“She was a judicator. A judge, I guess. But also like a lawyer and a judge in one.”

They drifted up the driveway. There was another car parked on the street.

“That’s weird. Alex is here,” Kara said, picking up Alex’s voice from inside the house, talking to Eliza. She set Lena back onto solid ground.

“Is it strange to say that I don’t want the day to end?” Lena asked.

“I don’t think so,” Kara said. She shrugged a shoulder. Lena looked small in her blazer, the skirt of her dress wrinkled from being carried. “I feel the same way. Something feels… different about today.”

“In a good way?” Lena asked, hopeful. Kara looked at her with a smile playing at her lips.

“Yea, definitely in a good way.”

They stewed in their moment of calm, unmoving, neither one making their way to the front door. A lamp flickered down the street. Kara could hear the ocean churning rocks in the bay. A car drove down the highway. Eliza said something to Alex inside, but Kara couldn’t quite make it out. She looked at Lena—Lena who always worried her lip between her teeth, whose hair fell out of her bun in soft, thick curls, who developed a blush on her neck when she drank a sufficient amount of alcohol. Everything she could ever want was in this moment. Lena in front of her, Alex and Eliza safe on the other side of the front door.

She reached out and let her hand come to rest on Lena’s shoulder. She had a fierce desire to pull Lena into a hug, suddenly, but she let it pass. Kara was more concerned with the color of Lena’s eyes. Were they grey? Or were they green? Maybe they were neither. Maybe they’ve been gold this whole time. Kara’s hand moved of its own will, sliding up Lena’s neck to cup her cheek. Lena tilted, leaned into the touch, her eyes fluttering shut.

Kara swallowed. Her mouth felt dry.

“We should go inside.”

“We should,” Lena agreed.

“Alex is gonna tease me for being out so late.”

“Is she?”

“Yea,” Kara said, a whisper.

The front door swung open suddenly and Kara dropped her hand.

“I thought I heard you kids out here,” Alex said. She was smiling, wearing a comfortable sweater and a pair of jeans. Her eyes darted between Kara and Lena, seemed to linger on Lena for a moment before snapping back to Kara. “Surprise! I came to visit mom. Also, to make Lena sign some paperwork finally.”

Kara rolled her eyes.

“Seriously?” Lena asked.

“Dead serious,” Alex replied. She lolled her head against one shoulder and looked at Lena as if it inconvenienced her, too. “It’s the government, you know?”

Lena snorted, pushing past Alex and into the house, Kara quick to follow.

“Can’t we go back to me making coy comments about how Kara gets around downtown National City without owning a car?”

“I’m ‘fraid not, Luthor,” Alex said, shutting the door behind them. “By the way, you kids are out late.”

“Pfft, told you,” Kara said. “It was a wedding, Alex. Of course we’re gonna stay out late.”

“Yea yea, you smell like that alien booze, too.” Alex slid between her sister and Lena, sniffing as she went past, then turned to Lena. “Want a beer?”

“Sure,” Lena answered, shrugging. She waved to Eliza on the couch.

“Oh, by the way, I kicked you out of the guest room,” Alex said. She opened the fridge, leaned back to inspect their selection, then bent forward to swipe something off a shelf for Lena. “Sorry, but I’m older than you so you get the twin bed that’s next to Kara’s upstairs.”

Lena took the bottle of beer by its neck and rolled her eyes.

They talked for a few minutes and Lena sipped at her beer while Kara recounted bits of the evening, excitedly explaining how Lena actually knew Amanda from college and how Lena had perfectly caught the bouquet. Eliza seemed delighted to hear about the minute details of the venue, asking about the colors of the flowers and the style of the bridesmaids’ dresses. Kara matched her enthusiasm easily, gushing about details Lena had no idea that she’d noticed. But eventually, Kara complained about being tired and—ignoring whatever looks Alex was giving her aside—she tugged Lena up the stairs.

Something alighted in Kara when Lena went willingly. It grounded her as Lena bid Eliza and Alex good night, when Eliza reached out to touch Lena’s arm and explain how nice it was to have them in her home. Kara thought about that something as she undressed at human speed while Lena went through her nightly routine in the bathroom. She tugged a worn, loose tee over her head and sat at the edge of her bed in a pair of dated basketball shorts that might have belonged to Alex. She listened to the water run through the pipes in the house as Lena washed her face and to the quiet whisper of Alex and Eliza as they spoke to one another, jovial tones lilting to Kara’s ears.

She got up to put one of Amanda’s old mix tapes into her CD player, yanked open the drawer where Eliza had put back her contraband, and almost as an afterthought, nudged her bed toward Alex’s, making a shoddy king sized monstrosity shoved to one end of the room. She took a drink out of the bottle before plopping down across both mattresses onto her back.

The door creaked and Kara listened to Lena’s bare feet shuffle across the hardwood over the music playing softly from her desk.

“ So I thought I’d let you know/ that these things take forever/ I especially am slow.”

The bed dipped. Lena’s face, haloed by the overhead light, came into Kara’s line of sight.

“Hey,” Lena said. Her hair was down, one side tucked behind her ear.

“Hi.”

Lena smiled, lowering herself to lay down next to Kara while sipping what was left of her beer. She propped her chin onto her elbow and Kara shifted, tilting her body so that she could look at Lena without craning her neck. Kara could feel Lena thinking, could see the miniscule ways that her eyes darted over Kara’s face.

“You’re not wearing your glasses,” she said.

“No, I’m not.”

Kara wanted to keep this moment forever. But it passed. Lena got up to look around for the glasses in question, leaving her beer bottle on the desk, by the CD player and strewn about mixtapes Amanda Klein gifted to a new alien refugee on a planet whose inhabitants called it Earth. Lena went back to the bed with the frames on her face, imitating a clumsy reporter and Kara could do nothing but laugh and be happy that this where she had ended up after everything and anything.

Kara thought that the implausibility of her life collided with the improbability of Lena’s one day in an office building, before Kara was even a reporter. But she was beginning to see that maybe that wasn’t the start at all. That maybe the collision happened before that. That maybe they were set on a path to collide before they had any say in the matter.

They were a miracle born from chaos, like turning air into gold.

--

Light slanted through the windows, falling on Lena’s face, sun beating against her eyelids. She shifted in her half-conscious state, vaguely aware that she was not in her room and not in her bed before her brain caught up with the daylight and reminded her of where, exactly, she was. Everything was still.

The breadth of a morning where the sun was out but its people had yet to rise.

Blinking, she lifted her head a few inches. She’d fallen asleep on Kara’s chest. Supergirl slept with her mouth open, flaxen hair a tangled, thick mess on the pillow she was using—she moved slightly, pulling Lena closer to her. Lena sighed and laid her ear against Kara’s chest, listening.

For the first time in a long time, Lena went back to bed. The future could be written in a couple more hours, after all.