cosmic girl (from another galaxy) (supergirl x reader)
pairing: alcock!kara zor-el / supergirl x reader
summary: proud starter of workplace beef with your coworker clark kent, your frustration at never being able to beat him out for an interview with superman boils over, and you set your sights on a much easier target; supergirl. an unclaimed, underappreciated beat leads you to lands that challenge the deep ethical values you hold as a journalist. in short, you’ve fallen hard for kara zor-el, and have no idea what to do about it.
tags: strangers to friends to lovers, kara is bad with feelings, especially romance. slightly cringe lovergirl kara but only in her own dialogue. kara is nonchalant final boss. loose mentions of drunk kissing/sex. reader finds parallels in their experiences with kara, we’ll call it mutual understanding cuz idk the right term lol. casual identity exposure of both kara and clark, basically kara spills the beans about her cousin’s well-kept secret to you. some details in this are comic-based, but some things are also made up, so don’t think about it too much lol.
warning(s): themes of suicide / suicidal thoughts, drowning, depression, compartmentalization, and apathy. discussions of kara’s past (movie), death, funeral(s), alcoholism, grief. frequent mentions of pain, wounds, blood, sorta vomit warning? (character spits blood up). light to medium sexual innuendos / thoughts. implied sex but nothing crazy explicit.
notes: gender neutral reader, no use of y/n, spoilers for supergirl (2026). really wanted to focus on kara’s depth as a character (as i understood it) so i hope i did her justice ! noticed a lack of supergirl fics and a high demand, and all i’ve done is think about this movie since watching it, so i aimed to provide. hope you enjoy :)) please especially pay attention to the warnings on this one, it takes some fairly serious turns so they are there for a reason !
“You’ve done it again!” You bark, kicking the edge of Clark’s desk chair, scowling at the back of his head with enough force to burn holes through his skull.
You throw a newspaper at the side of his face with a smack, Clark’s name printed loud and proud in the byline of The Daily Planet’s edition from this morning. “Superman says Metropolis is safe from the latest unnamed threat.”
It was a good story. The quotes were perfect, the retelling of the scene better than anything you could think up, and you had literally witnessed it. Clark always had a way of working like that — of describing Superman’s encounters like he had physically fought them himself.
The punches landed with barely a quarter second between, Superman’s jaw cracking beneath the weight of the assailant’s fist. Its body contorted when the hero struck back, skin restructuring around every blow it faced. But not quick enough to avoid being taken down by America’s favorite Kryptonian. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Superman said. “I’m still not sure what to think of it. What to classify it as. It’s impressive and confusing all at once.”
“How did you get to him before I did? I was on the scene!”
Clark spun around in his chair like a menacing villain in a movie, except.. well, without the menacing part. And the villainy.
He smiled loosely, shrugging his shoulders. You were infuriated, your blood as hot as a live flame in your veins. It wasn’t even that you hated him. His writing was good, and he was so nice. So nice that it made you mad, because you wanted to hate him, but you couldn’t.
He was a good journalist, and that was why he got so many opportunities. Opportunities that you wanted.
“I dunno,” he said. “He just likes talking to me.”
“Mark my words, Kent. I will get an interview with him.”
“I don’t doubt that.” And you knew he meant it. God, did that piss you off more. No one should be that nice, that kindhearted. That genuine. He was so annoying.
You huffed audibly, mumbling under your breath as you stomped back across the bullpen. One day you’d be allowed to cover better stories. You wouldn’t have to spend every evening after your shift at boring government meetings, listening to pundits drone on about things you could barely stay awake through, let alone write about — budgeting funds, updating zoning laws, regulating city traffic. Someday, you’d get your name recognized, instead of having it sandwiched between sections of cleaning advice and baking tutorials.
Something occurred to you after a moment, the small light in your mind flickering on. Superman wasn’t the only Kryptonian that Metropolis housed. Just because he was the only one people talked about didn’t mean he was the only one that existed.
Supergirl had been in front of you the whole time. She lived in the same place, did the same things, but got a sliver of the recognition he did. She didn’t get the luxury of news stories, press releases, or quotes in a lede. She was an untapped, untouched market free for your taking.
If you could put her in a headline, or even on the front page, it would be a hell of an article. A way to get your foot in the door in an environment that was constantly shifting around you, forgetting you before you even had a chance to get remembered.
You could see it now; your name in the byline of something people wouldn’t flip or scroll past, mentioned on the streets instead of glazed over. “The mystery of Metropolis’ underrecognized second superhuman.”
You found yourself in Perry’s office at the end of the day, pitching your idea with a brightness in your eyes and a metaphorical bushiness to your tail. He sighed, pinching at the bridge of his nose.
“Look kid, I know you want something big, but how is this story gonna be different from any other one written about Superman?”
You deflated, looking displeased at his comment. Kid. You were 23, you weren’t a child. His words were close enough to rejection to make you worried you’d be shot down without a second thought.
“Because they’re completely different people?” You question, gesturing wildly. Your bag smacked against your side, as if emphasizing your words. Your desperation.
“Sir, please. I can make it unique. She can bring a different kind of hope to the people around here. Make a difference to young girls. To me. My career.”
Perry went quiet, eyes level with yours. There wasn’t a crack in his expression that made you believe he felt one way or the other about it. He sighed, dragging his palm over his cheek.
“Show me you have a good start in a week, and I’ll think about it.”
You grinned, clapping your hands together. You tipped your chin in a half-bow, nodding vigorously.
“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”
You almost trampled Clark on your way out the door, nearly spilling the cold remains of his coffee down the front of his suit. He pushed up the crooked edge of his glasses with a tilt of his head, wondering if the building was on fire. He hadn’t seen you get this excited about anything.
“What’s got you pepped up?” He questioned, brows pulling together, gaze fixated on the hyper twitching of your expression. You haphazardly shoved things into your tote — notebook, pens, phone, keys. You whirled around, pointing a smug finger in his direction.
“Superhero hunting,” you declared. “You’re going down, Kent.”
He blinked, eyes closing in on the tip of your finger. You were bounding out the door before he could ask what you meant by hunting, wondering if he should be looking over his shoulder on the way home.
You spent an hour in the city square before you spotted the sparkling red and blue you’d grown familiar with. The two tones of a suit that was typically splayed over someone else’s skin, usually flying by you in a blur, chasing something you could barely keep up with.
Supergirl didn’t fly. She walked. She carried a ceramic coffee mug in her hand instead of a paper cup, sauntering along the streets like she was unencumbered by the things that accompanied her more popular counterpart.
You darted up from the bench as you caught sight of her messy, blonde hair. It didn’t take long to catch up with her.
“Supergirl!” You called, maybe a bit too loud. Too excited.
She turned, pushing a pair of rounded sunglasses up onto her head. A dog trotted beside her, curling around her leg as she stopped, its ears flopping to one side as it stared you down.
“I, uh..” You fumbled. You hadn’t really thought this far ahead. You’d never actually talked to a superhero before. Let alone spring such a loaded question onto them. The people you talked to didn’t have crazy reputations — they were small government leaders, local business owners, or just plain old citizens. Normal people.
She tilted her head, watching you curiously.
“Sorry, miss. I was just.. I’m with The Daily Planet. I was hoping to do a story on you. If you want.. to help..”
She thought about it, twisting the mug around in her hand. She pulled her sunglasses back over her eyes, shrugging noncommittally.
“Okay. Meet me at Crossroads tomorrow at.. whatever time it is right now.” She walked off, not bothering to wait for your response. You blinked, fingers flexing awkwardly at your sides. You looked down at your watch, head jerking back up as you watched her leave. Mission.. accomplished? Maybe?
You were surprised that Supergirl had agreed to this so quickly. So easily. You found yourself weirdly giddy, a twisting feeling settling in your stomach that wasn’t normally there when you were meeting with a source. She made you nervous.
You’d let her pick the place. It was a thing you did; giving sources control over when and where you met. Most people were wary of meeting like this, of being constantly watched and catalogued. The feeling of surveillance. So you made an effort to give them as much autonomy over the situation as you could.
She’d picked a bar a few blocks down from The Daily Planet, one with blue LED lights and a giant jukebox. There were fake leaves hanging on every inch of the right wall, and red leather booths tucked against every corner. Jazz settled in the space like something deeply physical — like the notes and tonal shifts had a mouth and they said “this is everything you’ve ever wanted, don’t screw it up.”
You followed her to one of the cola-red booths, and she slid into the left seat, facing the doorway. You took note of it, even if you weren’t sure it was important. She left an easy way out open, and she watched each person who entered and left.
She ordered three whiskey sours at once, draining them quicker than you’d seen anyone drink anything in your life. You fiddled with the edge of your notebook, wrinkling one of the pages’ edge between your thumb and forefinger. You were already scribbling things down — taking note of the bar’s atmosphere, her clothing choices, her habits, her drink order.
She wore a faded Def Leppard tee and a brown overcoat, her hair mussed, faint traces of mascara smudged at the edges of her eyes. The same sunglasses were tucked above her hairline despite the fact that the evening was fading in, like they existed as an accessory instead of serving a practical use.
She watched you thoughtfully, gaze following the movement of your hand over the rim of the glass.
“You drink fast.” You heard yourself say, cringing inwardly at the stupidity of the comment. Get it together, you thought.
“Yeah, well, I don’t usually drink on these planets.”
You blinked, head tilting. Supergirl lifts her glass, whiskey sloshing over her fingers. You’d just ordered a water, intent on being the responsible one if need be. Turns out, you could’ve drank if you wanted to.
“Ones with yellow suns,” she said, like it was obvious. “I prefer red planets.”
“‘Cause it makes me like you.” She points a sticky finger in your direction, resting her cheek on the edge of her empty glass.
“Human. Able to destroy my liver. It makes the taste of this swill worth it.”
“Ah.” You chittered, giving an awkward nod. Can’t get drunk on planets with yellow suns, you scribbled, muttering in exasperation as your pen began to run out of ink. You pulled another from the inside pocket of your bag, scratching at the edge of your notebook to get the ink flowing.
“So, is this really all there is to it?”
“Being interviewed. You take note of my drinking habits and I pretend it doesn’t weird me out that you write down everything I say?”
You blanched, hand stilling mid sentence. Yeah, you guessed that was pretty strange. Normally you were more focused, more engaged in the conversation. Something about her made you want to bury your face in your notebook and never leave it.
“Sorry. You have a good point.”
Silence briefly coated the space between the two of you, and she seemed to be cataloguing you as much as you were cataloguing her. You realized that, maybe, she was waiting on you to explain it. You kept up with all the local news, and you knew that she’d never been interviewed before. They were always focused on Superman.
You cleared your throat, pushing your notebook aside.
“It’s like, um, profiling, y’know? Like an FBI agent, or..”
Kara cocks her head, faint amusement sparking in her eyes at your feeble attempts to explain. Still, she seems entertained, which isn’t a bad thing. At least, you think it isn’t.
“I start out by getting to know you physically. How you choose to dress, where you choose to go, what you eat or drink. It’s all important to your personality. Then, we just have conversations with each other. It’s like.. having a friend, but professionally.”
“Professionally,” she repeats.
She pushes her empty glasses aside, tucking her arms on the table, one looped over the other.
“Okay, so ask me what you wanna know.”
You paused, caught off guard by her swift agreement. You were getting the feeling that she was a somewhat open book.
“Originally, Krypton. But it’s an extinct planet now.”
You knew that. Of course you knew that. You’d read every article to exist about Superman, drafting questions he hadn’t yet been asked for the fateful day you finally beat Clark to the punch. It still hadn’t happened yet.
You nodded, scribbling a few things down, then returning your attention to her.
“You aren’t just gonna ask me about him the whole time, are you?”
Your senses twitched, something pulling at the edges of your mind. Her voice had been even in the time you’d begun talking to her, but there was a newfound tilt of disdain locked behind her sentence. She didn’t seem fond of the idea of being used as a source for her cousin.
“No, I’m not. People know enough about him, don’t they? Nobody knows anything about you.”
The answer seems to satisfy her, and the line of tension in her shoulders fades, her expression loosening.
You spend a few hours there, tucked in a too-warm booth with Metropolis’ second alien life form, learning things that no one else had bothered to ask her. It made you excited. You were the first person to start forming a story around her. If it was good, you’d finally start getting taken seriously.
Her name was Kara Zor-el. She was freshly 23, and she enjoyed partying on red planets because “they had better booze,” and “made it easier for her to get sloshed.” Apparently, yellow planets had shitty alcohol. Who knew.
She had been sent away from Krypton in the equivalent of a space hamsterball as a teenager, and then moved in with her cousin in his ice palace. Dubbed the “Fortress of Solitude,” it was located in the middle of the Arctic tundra, over a hundred miles away from the North Pole, and even further from civilization. She lived there long enough to learn English, and then she took her dog, Krypto, and a flying space camper away to other planets.
“Why’d you leave so soon?” You asked.
She shrugged, tracing a circular pattern into the sticky tabletop.
“And you came back because..?”
“Things changed. I got tired of all that.”
She’d moved back to Metropolis just a few months ago, for reasons she’d chosen to brush over. You didn’t pry. Didn’t ask what, exactly, had changed. Had made her want to come back to the place she’d avoided for so long. She’d hopefully share that with time. You went your separate ways when the bar started closing, a faint skip in your step as you hustled your way back into your apartment.
You were too pepped up to sleep, so you jotted your thoughts down in an empty doc, typing until your fingers started cramping, eventually passing out on your couch.
Kara sighed softly, tugging her jacket off and hanging it on the hook by the door. Krypto barked, then came trotting out her bedroom door, jumping up at her legs.
“Hey, buddy,” she murmured. She leaned down to his level, scratching behind his ears.
“I think I’ve found something good.”
You’d met up with Kara two or three times a week since then. Perry had given you a short leash with the story, just intrigued enough by the details you’d provided to give you a limited stamp of approval.
“I can pull you off it at any time. Don’t get too attached.”
You’d nodded, not letting the words phase you too much. It was as close to approval as you’d ever get from him.
Usually, Kara asked to go back to the bar. You ordered water the first few times like usual; then, slowly, it morphed into the two of you sharing drinks with one another. She always got whiskey sours, where yours changed often — sometimes it was a dirty shirley, sometimes a seltzer, sometimes you ordered the same thing she did.
“Why did you want to interview me and not my cousin?” She asked one day, her fingertips tracing along the edge of her empty glass. Your hand flexed around your own, knuckles flickering.
You guessed it was alright to be honest at this point. She’d given you a bit of a tether, and you couldn’t take without giving something of value in return. That was the push-and-pull of the job.
“I want to be taken seriously. To finally cover a worthwhile story. To get noticed.”
“And you think I’m worthwhile?”
You lift your head, something strange flaring in the pit of your stomach. She smiled, one side of her mouth hanging crookedly. There was an amused glint in her eyes, the air shifting with an uncharted feeling for your usual meetings. It was always contractual, albeit with a friendly undertone. This felt.. different. Playful.
You both ordered one more, finishing them off in silence. She stared at you, while you seemed particularly interested in the table’s wood grain.
She placed her hand on your shoulder before you could flee down the street, stilling you outside the bar door. The cool breeze curled her wild hair around the slim angle of her cheekbone, your eyes catching on it, filing away the visual stimuli like you did her words — slipping it into a cabinet somewhere deep in your mind.
She pressed a paper into your palm, and your mind fixated far too closely on the tingle her fingers brought to your skin. Your cheeks burned slightly, and you were thankful for the fact that the streetlights had yet to come on.
“Meet me here next week. Tuesday.”
She turned on her heel, and she was gone. You stood there for a good five minutes, brain still scrambling by the feeling her touch had surfaced beneath your flesh. You kept telling yourself it was the alcohol giving your brain its buzz and your heart that record-scratching skip the entire walk back to your apartment.
Kara was driving herself insane.
Clark’s apartment was too damn hot, and Krypto was lying a little too close for her to be able to sleep properly. Exhaustion curled in her veins, but every time she closed her eyes, all she could see was you.
The way the neon light carved out every inch of softness that made up your form — the rounded skin of your cheeks, the constellations of freckles that disappeared beneath your sleeves, how your blush always dipped beneath the collar of your shirt. The way your lips got pink after just one drink, how the edges of your words would slur and bend. You were such a lightweight. The sensitivity of it all made her mind scramble.
She was constantly reminded of your humanity at every step. When she saw squirrels while walking Krypto down the block, when she smelled tea leaves from the brewery across the street, when fruit vendors offered her peaches — she tried often not to think of how the juice would look across your mouth, and how it would feel to wipe the stickiness from your lips with her fingertips. She always failed.
You called it a professional relationship. She reminded herself of that, too. That you weren’t in this for romantic interest, and that your frequent meetups weren’t for dates or hookups, or anything nefarious like that. You wanted to talk to her to draw attention her way, and to, hopefully, draw the same kind of attention to yourself.
It was a relationship of mutualism. She helped you, you helped her. But you felt nothing for her. You probably wouldn’t even be her friend after this was over, even though she would settle for that. Being your friend at least meant she got to keep you around, could keep you in her orbit, but she knew that it was unlikely that would happen.
So why the hell did it keep her up night after night? Why did she think of you every second she was breathing?
So, she did the only thing she felt like she could do. Besides saying something stupid to you. She talked to Clark.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said across the kitchen island. Clark had his attention on the eggs in the pan, shaking copious amounts of salt and pepper atop them.
“Well, do they like you?”
“They’re writing a story about me, Clark! It’s not like that at all.”
“People fall in love with their sources all the time. And sources fall in love with reporters.”
Kara groaned, dropping her forehead against the granite, hoping its coolness would knock her unbalanced sense of judgment back into place. It didn’t work.
“Kara, I’m just saying. It’s not the end of the world if you like them.”
“Well, what do you think?”
She groaned, tossing a clump of napkins at his back. It hit his shoulder with a loose thump, scattering across the floor pathetically. She crossed the edge of the island toward him, mismatched striped socks hanging low on her ankles.
“Do you think they like me, Clark?”
He shrugged, looking awkward.
“They don’t really talk to me enough for me to know them that personally. I don’t think they like me,” he muttered.
“What, because you keep cheating and stealing Superman interviews from under their nose?” You’d given her a bit of information about it, why you had fought so hard to get permission to write a piece about her. She hadn’t ever imagined that her cousin was the villain in your story, but a part of her felt livid on your behalf. It was pretty unfair, what Clark was doing.
He gasps, the sound caught between real and faux hurt, flipping the yolk over in the pan. He slides it onto the nearby plate, one perfectly done sunny-side up egg waiting for Kara.
“It’s not cheating! I just.. have an advantage.”
She smacks his shoulder, scowling at him pointedly. “Because Superman is you! That’s cheating, Clark!”
He starts to snap back with something snarky, but he realizes he has nothing. He withers, pouting like a dog, a deflated noise sounding in his throat.
“..Yeah, okay, maybe it is. But I don’t have time for actual interviews. It’s easier to just think of what I’d say in response to questions.”
Kara digs into her egg, impatient. She speaks through a mouthful, which earns her a look of disdain.
“Stay on topic. Do they like me or am I just losing my mind?”
He sighs, raising one shoulder in another careful shrug.
“Look, it’s possible they like you. But it’s also possible they don’t. I can’t tell you that. That’s for you to figure out for yourself, Kar.”
Kara was jittery. A week passed quicker than she wanted it to, and suddenly it was Tuesday and she didn’t know what to do with herself.
Kara wasn’t a nervous person. It was rare that she felt scared, or felt that she didn’t have a plan. Kara always had a plan. But you unraveled her.
You, with the curious eyes and the even curiouser lips. You rarely smiled, always looking pensive. You were constantly thinking, and it made her more nervous than she wanted to admit. She always wanted to know what you were thinking about, she wanted to be able to pull back your skin and look inside of your head; to observe the inner workings of your mind, understand how your brain worked.
Your gaze tore her apart, peeling back the layers she thought she did a good job of hiding. She wanted to be a part of the constantly flowing waters of your thoughts.
How much of your mind did she take up? Was she a stream, or a bursting dam? Was she even worth thinking about to you?
Even worse, she felt herself wanting to tell you everything.
Her past, every detail of her life. How much she wanted to keep your considerate gaze on her every second of the day, how she wanted to make that expression crumble as she answered questions you didn’t know you had with a touch you’d never felt before.
As much as she loved seeing you under that bar light, she wanted to see you somewhere else. Under different atmospheres, with different hues waiting to melt the thoughtfulness of your eyes. She wanted you near her, under her, in her bed. She wanted to watch you fall apart beneath the weight of her palms.
She pushed the thought away with a flush, frazzled by her own wandering imagination. You looked as radiant as ever when she saw you — your bag hanging from your shoulder, your hand raised as you blocked the filtering light from between the distant skyscrapers. Your eyes crinkled with recognition, the faintest of smiles tugging at the edge of your lips, miniscule dimples creasing your cheeks.
She swallowed, forcing her hand still as she raised it in greeting.
She’d given you the address of a park on the north side of Metropolis, a stone’s throw from LutherCorp.
She led you to a secluded bench at its corner, beneath the shade of a dogwood. She tried not to look too hard at the way the leaves cast patterns on your skin beneath the sunset.
“What’s with the change in scenery?”
Kara tucked her foot atop her knee, pushing nonexistent sunglasses up into her hair. She’d purposefully left them behind on her nightstand, but her limbs still caught in the nervous habit. She’d tamed her hair a little better, had wiped the smeared remains of mascara off her eyelid. She wanted to look good. Put together. She wanted to impress you. She wasn’t even sure if you cared about that, but for some reason, she’d thought about it.
Because, god, you always looked wonderful. Like it was something that came so naturally to you.
“I, um.. I dunno, really. I just like it here.”
Kara paused, limply shrugging.
She nodded, fiddling with a loose thread on her pants. She could feel you scrupulously noting her nervousness, filing away the minute shifts in her expressions and movements into your extensive mental catalogue.
“When I need to think, yeah.”
You paused for a moment, hands finding the strap of your tote as you slid it off your shoulder. You plopped it into the grass, body angling slightly towards her. Engaged in the way that you always were when she opened her mouth. She wondered if you did that with everyone, or if she was special.
“And.. what are you thinking about?”
She halfway gestured between the two of you with both hands, fingertips drawing circles in the air.
She turned her head towards you, eyes finding the prying tilt of your gaze. There was an ever-present pressure behind your irises, a curiosity that fueled your passion. You couldn’t exist without it. She knew you wouldn’t make her say anything she didn’t want to, but it didn’t stop you from being curious about it.
She wanted to ask what you felt. How you felt. If her mind was turning her in circles, or if she wasn’t reading as much into it as she assumed she was. If you felt the same.
“Why me? Seriously. I don’t do anything crazy like my cousin does.”
The thoughtful expression on your face deepened, a crease forming between your brows. You hummed, something gentle and smooth, and Kara thought she might explode. She bit down on the inside of her cheek, ignoring the way her pulse pressed against her ribcage.
“My answer has changed since you first asked me. It’s still about you, and the story, and recognition. But it’s also that.. I find you interesting. I’ve never met anyone like you. That’s become more important to me than any of the rest of it.”
She swallowed, a pit splitting open in the depths of her abdomen. Was that a good thing?
You went silent for an uncomfortably long time, and the cavern in her stomach pressed deeper. Her legs felt numb, her fingertips drumming against her knee.
“..You’re a good person, Kara, whether you think so or not.”
She struggled, her breath burning in her lungs. When she finally exhaled, it sounded more like a wheeze. You caught onto that, too. The sound of pure, unfiltered relief.
“Maybe people think you aren’t the nicest, or the most digestible, but you do what’s right in the end. I think that’s going to be an important thing for people to hear.”
She paused, eyes finding the skyline through the trees. The city was behind her here, less obstructing. The view of the bay reminded her of Krypton’s infinity pools. But she could still turn around and look at her home; to know that it was still waiting for her. That it hadn’t slipped from her fingers. Maybe she didn’t have Krypton anymore, but the feeling was the same here as it had been on her planet.
“My mom always said to be.. good. That I didn’t have to be nice, but always good.”
She trailed off, feeling the weight of your eyes on the side of her face.
“I guess I just don’t get it. You could write an uplifting story. A story about someone admirable — someone who could bring this city hope — if you just talked to my cousin instead.”
“..He’s a strange one, but he’s goodhearted. Wants to save everyone. I find it annoying sometimes, but I’d hate to see him get trampled on for that. That’s the kind of story people want to hear. About someone strong who can still remain nice. Someone who always sees the good in the world.”
“But that’s not the story I want to tell.”
She looked over at you, meeting your gaze full-on. Unyielding. Intense. She flicked her eyes down to your mouth for a moment, then back up to your own. She could. Couldn’t she? Would you?
“Kara. I wanted to talk to you for a reason. And maybe it was selfish at first, but that’s not my reasoning anymore. People need to hear that you can do good things and also not have to water yourself down for others. That you can be yourself and still do what’s right. That’s what’s important to me now.”
The only sound were the crickets, and water distantly lapping against the shore. The waves were soft and quiet, easing the pinpricks of tension in her chest. She looked away from you a final time, enjoying the blanket of silence your words brought to her mind.
Meetings after that were less tense. Less precise, less professional. Kara stopped searching for the veiled poison behind your actions, stopped believing that her words weren’t of any use to you. But it didn’t keep her from thinking about other things. How she wanted to take note of every part of your body — the sloping hills of your waist, the crescent that existed in your lower back, the dimples by your hips. She wanted to commit it all to memory, to the point that she could paint a picture of it with her eyes closed.
All of it was driving her crazy. Being around you. Not being around you. Hearing you talk, your silence. Everything you did undid her and put her back together all at once.
Meanwhile, you’d stopped feeling like the two of you were lingering on the edge of understanding each other. You didn’t believe she was going to hold anything back from you anymore, but she needed a bit of a push to get into sharing it.
Your thoughts were different. She was in your mind, but it wasn’t anything close to the same way you were in hers. She was wearing way more clothes.
You’d been thinking about her more and more lately, about what she’d said about her mom. About her past. About her connection to Superman. It plagued your every waking thought, and even the sentences you weaved in your mind during sleep. You spent most nights restless, arising at least once each night to jot something down. A new question, a new line of thinking. A new detail for the story that you’d forgotten about until it resurfaced in your dreams.
You’d dreamt of her most nights, too. Replaying conversations, generating new ones. Reliving moments, forming them, then reforming them. Rearranging the same conversations with only certain sentences changed. You weren’t sure what that meant, or why you were doing it.
You kept meeting at the park by the bay. She’d never asked to go back to the bar, and you hadn’t asked why.
Eventually, you started going to the park by yourself. She was right about the fact that it was a good spot for thinking. Until you’d ended up there at the same time. Your legs were swung over the edge of the railing at the bay’s edge, hands tightly curled around the dark green metal, the paint chipping beneath your fingertips.
“Hey, you,” Kara called from behind you.
You turned, looking oddly embarrassed — like how Krypto did when he’d been caught tearing up Clark’s pillow that one time, Kara thought. It was a weird expression to see on your face. One she didn’t like in the slightest.
“Stealing my spot, are we?”
You managed a laugh, but it was weak. Thready. Uncharacteristic of you. She looked displeased, her face scrunching in a way you hadn’t seen it do before.
“Well, it is a nice place to come and think.”
She stepped closer, hopping up onto the railing beside you. Her hand rested close, the edge of her pinky sidled next to your own. Near enough to be comforting, but not too near. Distanced enough to be purposeful, without being too much.
“So,” she murmured. “What is it you’re thinking about?”
Her eyes traced your profile, cataloguing the way your features were outlined by the tipping edge of the sun. The moon had begun to rise behind you, stars pooling in the space where tangerine shifted into navy. Speckled clouds dotted the sky, high and stringy in parts of the atmosphere only she could reach.
You swallowed, and her gaze darted downward to follow the movement of your throat. She wondered how it would feel to unfurl her hand on it, to curl her hands around the skin and squeeze. To hear you gasp and feel you shudder. She needed to stop thinking about things like that.
“Are you interviewing me now?” You tried to joke, but it fell flat. Kara didn’t smile. You were silent for a long time, and she thought it was going to be permanent. That you were going to put up a border between the two of you, as if to say: “I’m not your friend, or a lover. I won’t tell you.”
What you ended up saying almost felt worse.
“It’s not right for me to tell you.”
She paused, head tilting as she considered what you could possibly mean by that.
“Because,” you mumbled. You continued to pick at the chipped paint, and she stared at the way it coated the underside of your fingernails.
“You’re a source. You tell me things, and I listen. I don’t.. I’m not meant to do the same with you.”
She halfway scoffed, the action involuntary. Rooted in disbelief. After all she’d shared with you, this was the route you were seriously going to take? To act like what you had wasn’t far more personal?
“That’s such bullshit.” She almost snapped, furiously shaking her head. You looked up at her, brows furrowing, your expression caught between equal parts hurt and surprise. You hadn’t expected her to say something like that, not to you. She was an honest person, and she told the truth, you knew that. But for some reason, it hit you in a place that made strife weave between your ribs.
“You know we’ve moved past all that. Our relationship hasn’t been contractual in a long time.”
You knew it was true. You’d both begun to think of it as far more than a connection born of obligation. She’d stopped feeling obligated to meet with you weeks ago, and you’d stopped feeling entitled and predatory over her attention. You weren’t meeting with her about the story anymore. It was still something you wanted to write, obviously, but it had moved further down on your priority list than you ever thought it would.
You both genuinely liked seeing each other, and that was why both of you kept showing up to these places. Why she gave you more and more tethers of her past, more access to the full range of her emotions. It was why you let yourself drink around her, became looser. More honest.
But she knew you were holding just as much back as she was. That you were both teetering on a slope that you knew you couldn’t come back from once you’d slid down it. Why you’d both danced around the obvious elephant in the room.
“I just.. I don’t really know what I’m doing with myself, I think,” you finally said. You looked away, eyes finding the white caps miles out in the bay. You pictured yourself swimming out to them, being swallowed by churning waters. You imagined the silence; how it would feel to be completely encompassed by it. To embrace peace and be washed away with it. To stop fighting it.
“..Okay,” she said quietly. There was a faint undertone of worry in her voice, like she could sense something was off, even in the tiniest shift of your tone. “How do you mean that?”
“I mean that, I have no people. No friends, no partner, no career prospects.”
Kara exhaled, feeling the worry double, coursing across her skin — wrapping around her heart, surging through her veins, making her head feel fuzzy and her body numb. She didn’t like the sound of that. She understood it, but she didn’t like hearing it from you.
“I just feel like I’m ghosting through life. Like things happen that I should feel happy or worried or scared of, and I don’t feel anything at all, y’know?”
She was quiet for a moment, sliding her hand closer to yours. Her pinky gently brushed against your own, her skin warming with the small touch. You looked down, then over at her, unblinking. She slid her palm atop yours, her touch curling over your clenched fist.
She felt the tension ebb from you, noticing the slight release of stress from your shoulders, a weight sliding off your form like water through split fingers. Disappearing into her flesh, she took on the feeling and absolved it, bearing the strain with you.
“But what I also know is that it takes time,” she whispered, tone rasped as it escaped her throat. “Until a few months ago, I was convinced I’d be alone for the rest of my life. That I’d never find my people.”
“But I reconnected with my cousin, and made a friend on another planet, Ruthye. She was so convinced that revenge would fix her pain, but I knew that it would be something she’d bear for the rest of her life. The guilt of someone’s life on your hands, and how far that would push her. How unhappy it would make her.”
Kara’s voice caught slightly, inflection trembling around something invisible. A feeling that ran deep, down to the soul. She was talking about someone else, but also about herself, and simultaneously, about you, too.
You felt your eyes faintly water, emotions you’d buried and masked with anger, with persistence, finally rising to the surface. You’d shoved them aside by constantly working, by chasing goalposts that someone moved every time you reached them. You’d convinced yourself that if you just worked hard enough, you’d eventually feel satisfied. Be happy with your life. But that feeling hadn’t come yet, and you’d been trying for years.
She tightened her hand on yours, her thumb softly rubbing at your skin.
“I know some things feel like they’ll haunt you forever, but they won’t. You’ll never find that out if you give up.”
Tears pooled on your lower lash line, and her free hand reached up to cup your cheek, fingertips brushing them away. They ran down the mountaintops of her knuckles, salt sticking in the creases of her skin. Your eyes fluttered shut, and you let yourself lean into her. Just enough that your shoulder pressed to her own, her forehead brushing against yours.
She felt you nod, and knew it was enough.
Kara leaned back, fingers drying the wetness from your face. You looked up at her through damp lashes, a twist of desperation and neediness curling in your irises. For her. Or maybe something from her. She wasn’t sure which.
Your hands reached for her, curling into her baggy shirt and holding, like she’d somehow dissolve beneath you. Like she’d disappear if you didn’t clutch her tightly enough. She hadn’t seen you act like this ever — the trust made her feel good, but the depth of your feelings made her terrified. She wondered what you’d been thinking about doing before she’d come. She was glad that she had. That something had led her here to find you.
She cupped your jaw with both her hands, nudging her nose against yours before settling her mouth on you. Your lips tasted like salt, coated with the feeling of everything the two of you had been keeping from one another. You shivered. You gently split under her, fingers spreading against her sides, grasping at her skin beneath her shirt. She kissed you until you pulled away, burying your head against her collarbone.
“..It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”
You let yourself believe it, even if it felt unbelievable. Even though it felt impossible to process, you’d hold onto it until it finally registered with you. Until it made sense that the feeling would eventually fade, and you’d be okay again. Even if it took forever.
She’d insisted on walking you home, her hand slid through yours in a way that spoke of devotion. A silent promise of her presence. She’d kissed your forehead at the bottom of the stairs, then again at the door, her lips pressing to each one of your fingertips before you’d slid your key in the door.
Something had settled in you since the night at the bay, like a part of you had acknowledged that you’d gained more than you’d felt like you’d given up — like you’d traded all your hurt out for someone who understood you; a shoulder to lean against, lips to kiss, hands to hold.
You looked at everything with a new sense of appreciation, your soul warm and brightened by the presence of someone new and exciting. Something that made you realize things were beautiful even in the presence of loss or hurt. It wasn’t always all good, but it was better than before.
Half-distracted and way under-caffeinated, your mind wandered on your walk to work. You’d taken the long way, passing by streets lined with trees and flowering bushes. Stray cats lounged by people’s doorsteps, a soft breeze brushing over your face, the faint scent of saline rolling in from the west. The sun had just begun to rise over the edge of Metropolis’ cityscape, barely warm rays of light greeting your skin. You rounded the corner just a few blocks from The Daily Planet when you skidded to a stop.
Something you’d read about in one of Clark’s editions was darting around the sky — the strange creature with the reforming skin and lengthening limbs. But newer. The skin restructured easier this time, quicker. It didn’t struggle against fists or the concrete of buildings. It was too strong. Too perfect.
It almost made you unsettled. But it was also beautiful in a strange way. An unnatural work of art, much like a surrealist painting of some furred teacup or a french smoking “pipe.” Sculpted to be an unbreakable, unbeatable thing. A warrior that was worth fighting. Something that shouldn’t exist, gorgeous in its impossibility.
You were yanked from your thoughts when a streak of red and blue slammed into a building’s front window mere feet from you, and your heart twisted around itself in your chest.
You heard a distinctly masculine tone, followed by low mutters of words you couldn’t quite catch, and your shoulders visibly sagged with something between relief and disappointment. Definitely not Kara.
You contemplated walking by for a moment, feeling a sigh bubble in your throat, curling inward. You thought about Kara’s words from a few days ago.
“My cousin’s a strange one, but he’s goodhearted. Wants to save everyone. I’d hate to see him get trampled on for that.”
It was unlikely that Superman really needed your help, but you couldn’t just walk away. Not when you knew he meant so much to Kara. And you cared about what she cared about.
You found your purposeful stride tilting towards the shattered glass, loafers crunching against it as you made your way through the rubble. You coughed, the dust causing your lungs to burn from its weight.
“Superman?” You heard yourself call, voice strangely scratchy and weak to your own ears.
You heard a feeble groan from further in, the words muddled by the faint ringing in your ears.
Your head tilted, eyes narrowing as you tried to see through the billowing debris that seemed to stick to your sweat-slicked skin. It was a particularly hot day in Metropolis, but you hadn’t noticed until now.
The hair on your arms curled up, an odd feeling settling in the pit of your stomach. Something wasn’t right about this.
The figure you’d seen in the sky rose up from between the dirt and shattered concrete, its form shifting. Its skin slid like droplets of dew off a leaf, reshaping itself around a bone structure that didn’t make sense to you.
Its arms were too long, legs too short. Its body shuddered as it attempted to physically put itself back together. Okay, it was scary to you now. The beauty of it was only perceivable from far away. But this close? This close, you were able to understand it as a threat to more than just Superman. It didn’t care about trying to rip you apart, either, you suddenly realized.
You’d heard the words fight, flight, or fawn, but you hadn’t known which one you were until today. Not until this moment, when some irregularly-shaped creature welded its bones and skin back whole in front of your eyes, and you just.. stood there.
You couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Your thoughts were a tangled mess of fear and half-formed sentences. All you managed to think was how stupid you were for blindly wandering into a destroyed building thinking you could somehow save a superhuman.
You hadn’t even seen it follow him in, you—
A blow landed to the side of your jaw, a too-large fist leaving an imprint in the plush skin of your cheek. Your head caught the edge of a cinderblock on the way down, blood blooming at your temple as your form slumped over.
No, you couldn’t die. You’d just — everything had finally clicked for you. Everything was just beginning to feel right, and now it was being taken away from you. This had to be a joke, a cruel turn of fate. Like the gods themselves were pointing and laughing at you.
You felt terrified as the figure loomed over you, your mind buzzing with fear that you couldn’t absolve. Your head felt too heavy, your limbs too weak to press up onto. You couldn’t run, couldn’t scream, even though you tried. It came out as a pathetic whimper, your voice scratched and raw from the dust in the air.
The next few moments were a blur. Superman slammed the assailant aside, throwing it back through the hole it had created in the wall. He went somewhere, and then there was an assortment of sounds — punches landing, groans, the animalistic wail of something in pain, and then silence.
He was back again a moment later, kneeling next to you. His palm found your shoulder, the other tilting your head back and forth, gaze flitting across your face. Blood caked your hairline, your eyes glazed over in a way that made a pit form in his stomach. You could tell something was wrong by the shift in his expression.
You tried to speak, and ended up coughing. Blood spilt from your lips, dribbling down your chin.
“Oh, no.” Superman squeaked, and then you were out.
When you managed to come to, you were in an apartment. Yours?
You blinked sluggishly, head barely raising off the black, leathery couch beneath you. Black? Leather? No, your couch was.. yellow? Mustard yellow, right?
This wasn’t your apartment at all.
You pressed your hand to your forehead, ready to call out when you caught the edge of a hushed conversation. Distant, off in another room like someone didn’t want you to hear it. Your ears were still ringing slightly, and the act of sitting up made nausea rise in your throat.
“..wasn’t supposed to be there.. followed me.”
Then, the response of a much more frantic, slightly dazed voice — tone pitched, edged with the weight of fear. Kara, you thought, equally dazed.
The phone call seemed to abruptly end, and you settled your head back onto the cushiony arm of the couch beneath you, feeling the pinch of your breath in your lungs.
You could feel the dust practically coating your insides, drawing out a feeble cough from your lips. Boots quietly clicked against the floor, the quiet strength of Superman’s voice settling against your ears, just barely cutting through the soft ringing.
You groaned a strained reply, one hand raising to rub at your dry eyes, hand catching on the edge of a haphazardly rolled bandage. Your fingers slid along the cloth, which wrapped the length of your forehead and around the back of your head. You could feel the warmth of blood at the side of your temple, even through the bandage.
You must not have been out for long.
You swallowed dryly, head lolling as you lifted your eyes to him. His features were carved in deep hues of cerulean and plum, his eyes riddled with a mixture of concern and anxiety.
He seemed to wince at the aching tone of your voice, his eyebrows curling together before he forcibly smoothed his expression. He nodded, pressing his thumb into his palm.
You tipped your chin in weak acknowledgment, rolling your head back over, letting your eyes close. Exhaustion pulled at your limbs, forcing you to settle even if you wanted to stay upright.
You were drawn awake by a sudden burning in your chest, coughs rattling their way out of your throat. You pressed a hand to your lips, feeling the slick of blood on your fingers.
You felt dizzy, perception still blurred, eyes fixated a little too closely on the sight of your own blood coating your skin. A soft palm met your shoulder, followed by faint murmurs that you’d grown distinctly familiar with, even with the cotton-y feeling in your ears.
“It’s okay, you’re okay — back. Sit back. Clark!”
Clark? As in Clark Kent? No, you were in Superman’s apartment.
“Superman,” you muttered feebly. Kara’s head tilted towards you, her hand sliding down, fingers wrapping around your forearm. Your skin was cold and hot all at once.
“What? ..Oh, right. Superman.”
He rounds the corner at the shift in Kara’s tone, concern curling across his features. You stare at him, thinking. Thinking about why she’d called him Clark until pain flared between your temples, and you audibly gasped.
She’d turned back towards you, hands sliding up to press against your cheeks, looking more afraid than you’d ever seen her. Something raw and scared that made your world tilt a little. Maybe you were just delirious, maybe the dull ache you felt throughout your entire body was shifting her features. Making you delusional.
Superman pressed a cold cloth to your forehead, and you hadn’t even realized you were hot until you felt it. You were suddenly hyper aware of the slick feeling on your skin, the chills that came with a fever you couldn’t shake.
And Kara’s worry quickly made sense to you, because damn did you feel horrible.
Your face must have paled, or shifted into deeper anguish, because that terrified expression on her face only got worse.
“Clark, they aren’t good. This isn’t good, you—”
You coughed, feeling the sting of blood in your throat and debris in your lungs. You wheezed, exhaled, then mumbled something distantly.
Kara’s head tilted towards the sound, her voice slowly lowering. Like her very being was still getting used to feeling this way again.
“Hey, hey. Don’t try to speak.”
You shook your head, raising a shaky finger in Superman’s (Clark’s?) direction.
“Why.. Clark? That’s not — him..”
He grimaced, shooting Kara a look that was all disapproval. She bit down on the inside of her cheek, fingers bracing against your cheeks like she could press some of her life into you.
“Yes, it is. They’re the same person.”
You blinked, head trying to wrap around it. You looked at him — the confident carve of his cheekbones, the silent compassion and capability that smoothed his expression out. No, Clark was like an.. like an anxious wreck.
He wasn’t like this at all. He was your nerdy, infuriatingly nice coworker who stole the good interviews from right under your nose. The one you started fights with but could never be mad at.
Superman was.. cool. Kind and strong in a way that encapsulated his entire personality, whereas Clark seemed shy about it. He wasn’t vocal about it.
“Look, I’ll explain it to you later, okay? But that’s my cousin. Superman is Clark Kent.”
Your head hurts dully, the familiar frustration bubbling beneath your skin. So the only reason he got all those interviews with Superman is because it was just.. himself?
You managed a weak scowl, the point of your finger turning accusatory.
“That’s such bad journalism.”
He laughed, and you could see it then. Could see Clark in the planes of his face — in the way his dimples creased his cheeks, the embarrassed lightness crawling over his expression. That was all Clark.
“Yeah, Lois has said that before.”
Kara, at least, seemed relaxed by your ability to shoot your mouth off, but she still wasn’t feeling good about the hallowed state of your.. well, everything.
“You need to rest, okay? You have to get better.”
You swallowed, feeling the burn of iron and ash in your throat. You managed a nod, one hand lifting to curl around her own, flattening her palm against your cheek.
“Can I at least know what the hell that thing was?”
She shoots Clark a glance, uncertain. You can see that in the slight wrinkle in the bridge of her nose, her brows crumpling together.
“To be honest, I’m not sure. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. My only guess is that it has something to do with Lex.”
He paused, his face shifting as he stared at your gaunt face. Guilt spread through his stomach again, the kind that had made him pace for half an hour until Kara had practically busted his door down.
“I’m sorry. You weren’t supposed to be there.”
You coughed again, waving a dismissive hand.
“We’ll call a truce for now. It wasn’t your fault I got my shit rocked. But you owe me an interview later, ‘kay?”
He smiled, the edges of his eyes gentling.
“Alright, hotshot, sounds good. But you gotta get better.” If not for yourself, then for Kara. Because there wasn’t a lot Clark hated, but seeing that look on his cousin’s face made him want to tear the world apart.
When you woke again, it was darker. The sun had tipped below Metropolis’ cityscape, coating Clark’s apartment in midnight. Kara was the only one there. You weren’t sure where Clark was, and you weren’t sure if you should ask.
At the change in your breathing, Kara was at your side. She’d been slumped over in the chair across from the couch, unable to catch a wink of sleep. She’d settled for fiddling with her hands, fingers flexing around something invisible — reaching for an object, or maybe a person, just out of her grip.
She kneeled next to you, one shaking hand pressing to your cheek.
You rolled your head to the side, ignoring the pain that flared in the base of your neck. You hoped it was just from laying at an awkward angle, and not something else. You hadn’t remembered hurting your spine, but you also didn’t remember much of anything right now.
You coughed, and it burned slightly less than before, but with no less blood. She grabbed a rag from the coffee table, staunching it from your lips.
“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Kara whispered as you winced, voice purposefully soothing.
Mortality had always scared Kara. The delicacy of a person, especially ones who had no capacity to heal themselves. Ones that held such fragility beneath their skin that every action posed a threat to them.
You couldn’t just magically get better with a little bit of sunlight and sleep. What if you never got better? What if this was what the rest of your life would look like?
It made her sick to imagine.
“How are you feeling?” She managed, tracing triangular patterns in the warmth of your skin, hoping she could somehow cool you down.
You stirred, shifting onto your side to face her, forcing your way through a nod.
She bit down on the inside of her cheek, unconvinced.
“When Clark called me, I — I thought you—”
You fell into silence, swallowing the aching feeling in your throat. Your tongue was leaden, a sickly, iron taste overpowering your senses.
Kara lowered her voice after, her eyes finding a distant point in the dark over your head to fixate on, a strange blankness taking over her features.
“My mom.. she got really sick when I was younger. Radiation poisoning.”
She swallowed, blinking steadily. You could see her measuring her breaths, forcing her mouth to release inhales and exhales cleanly. Like it was a struggle just to get through the idea of speaking, let alone doing it.
“Krypton’s infrastructure was.. weak. The core was unstable, and when it collapsed, the buildings practically folded in on themselves. When my dad separated the city from the rest of the planet, the force field left a chunk of Kryptonite behind.”
You stayed quiet, eyes searching the distant glaze in her expression. You thought about it. A long, slow death, trapped on the remains of a planet that was dying even more sluggishly than you were.
It sounded like a lonely existence, and an even lonelier passing. You couldn’t imagine facing something like that and holding the strength to keep going. You’d probably just give up.
“It was deep beneath the soil. Slowly working its way into the water supply, the food, poisoning everyone. Leaving no option but to accept it, succumb to it, or die of dehydration or starvation.”
“People started dropping like flies, but it wasn’t all at once. It was a rolling, inconsistent process.”
Her breath caught, and you weren’t sure what you’d do if she started crying now. Your head felt fuzzy, thoughts reeling as you attempted to keep up with the turns of her story.
“My mother looked the same way you did. Had the same symptoms. I watched her get buried. So I just..”
You understood it now. How scary it must be, watching someone close to you experience the same thing as someone else, as someone who didn’t make it out.
She swallowed, her eyes finally finding yours, searching for an ounce of deception. She found nothing.
You paused for a moment, your hand moving to splay over hers. Your fingers pressed along the ridges of her knuckles, feeling the sharp cut of every bone.
You raised her hand to your lips, mouth following the trail of fire your fingertips had created moments before. She shuddered, pupils widening before her eyelids fluttered closed, expression crumpling beneath your touch.
She frayed at the edges, forcing her hand away from your mouth. She slid it along your jaw instead, pushing her palm against the skin of your neck as her lips pressed to yours. You startled, unsure if it was the persistent throbbing beneath your skin making you imagine things, or if she was really this close. You parted gently beneath her, head tilting to make room for the slight of her mouth, her teeth catching on your lower lip.
She followed the rolling valleys of your form, her hands disappearing down your front to catalogue every curve, fingers memorizing the soft edges that held your kindness so deeply. Every part of you was malleable beneath her fingertips, drawing a soft noise of approval from her.
“Kara,” you mumble, and she pauses.
“Yeah?” She settled her palms against your sides, thumbs divoting into the fabric of your shirt. She looked up at you through the curtain of her lashes, her chin tilting. Watching. Waiting.
She stilled, as if she’d just realized something. Your probable sensitivity. The ache she could sense within you at every labored inhale. She could feel the tightness in her own chest, like your struggle was something she felt just as strongly.
“Shit,” she muttered. “Um, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking—”
You leaned forward, capturing her lips again, thoughtlessly slipping your hands into her hair. Your fingers caught at the strands, flattened and tangled from slumping back against a cheap armchair. She mumbled something against your skin, nose clumsily bumping against your own as she chased after you.
It went on for a few minutes too long, her hands finding their way beneath your shirt, sinking into the plush slope of your stomach. Her fingers slid along the line of your dress pants, the way your pelvis disappeared beneath the fabric hitched at your hips. She slid back, her fingers curling around your wrists, tugging your hands free from her.
“You should get some more rest,” she said softly.
You mumbled something akin to a protest, and Kara smiled. You grinned back at her drunkenly, high off pain and the buzz of her lips on yours. She felt her heart stutter, satisfaction burning in her veins at being the one to make you look like that.
“I’ll take you out properly after this, yeah? We can go to a red planet, and we’ll get wasted together.”
“I have to finish my article,” you mumble, dazed. You lean back against the couch, already drawing into yourself, sleep grabbing at your heavy limbs.
“Yeah, yeah.” She murmured, pressing a small kiss to your temple through the bandage.
Kara made good on her promises.
Recovery was agonizingly slow, but you eventually returned to good health. You could take full breaths without struggling, and you could think clearly without having pain flare between your temples. The sun no longer hurt your eyes, and you could return to work.
She took you out to a red planet bar, and you shared about seven drinks each. You spent the night tangled in her sheets, her hair haloed over your face, lips on your neck like she’d been waiting for this. She made you fall apart, then sewed you back together so she could unravel your seams again.
She moved into your apartment, and you suddenly had something to look forward to every day — walks with Krypto in the evening, shared breakfasts and dinners, rooftop dates and parties on human-safe planets, kisses on your couch that shifted into bed nearly every night.
You finished your article, made the front page, and got promoted to cover more high-end stories; articles on overseas conflicts, profiles on higher-up government officials, got to attend meetings about new federal laws. And you got your interview with Superman (with the promise that you’d keep Clark’s secret, which you were fine to oblige with).
“Kara’s a compassionate soul,” Superman said. “She always does what’s right, even when it isn’t the easy thing. She’s the strongest person I know.”
bro this was so much fun to write, and if you stuck through to the end of this just know i appreciate u sm <33 ! i felt a lot of personal connection with this movie, and i really wanted to capture what it meant to me and the true depth of kara’s character, and i feel like i accomplished that in a way i’m satisfied with. i hope y’all enjoyed this as much as i did ((:
