Guilty as Sin? - ending
Supergirl. Supercorp. Kara Danvers x Lena Luthor
Word Count: 2.5k
Notes: sorry it took me forever, I kept turning this part over on my hands waiting for perfection, but... It's not perfect. It's messy and funny and, I think, very Kara. Hope you guys like it.
Read Lena's POV here so this can actually make sense :)
I choose you and me… Religiously.
Kara loves Lena too hard. Always has. Always will.
She loved her through breakdowns, the end of the world, the missteps and mishaps. She loved her against her better judgement and against what people told her, against every warning that said this was too complicated, too dangerous, too much. It never mattered. It never stopped her.
Kara has loved Lena throughout history, as quietly and certain as she could be.
Now she wants to love her out loud. In outbursts and honesty and everything she used to keep locked behind her teeth.
Kara wants to move in, write Lena’s name on her arms like a tattoo. She wants people to know, wants Lena to know. Better yet, she needs Lena to know.
But the thing is, they’ve danced around this for too long. Been scared of it for too long. And those fears of ruining this, of losing her, they don’t disappear just because now Lena is sleeping next to her.
No.
They change shape.
They get quieter. Sharper. Smarter in a way that feels worse.
They start telling her she is going too fast. Wanting too hard. That she is scaring something away just by holding it the way she has always known how to hold things.
At least, that’s what it must feel like to Lena sometimes.
Like when she turns her head away when Kara says “I love you” in a crowded room and doesn’t say it back right away. Or when she goes still for a fraction too long after Kara casually calls the penthouse “our place.” Or when she lies perfectly still in the middle of the night, except for her heartbeat, when Kara wakes up and realizes she’s been tracing words on her skin without meaning to.
Mine.
Kara knows she shouldn't have done it.
Which is unfortunate because she is dying to do it again.
Kara doesn’t really think about distance anymore.
She thinks about presence.
Which is how she ends up in Europe before she fully decides to be in Europe, the decision happening when she stares at her bed and realizes Lena isn't there, and it just feels… wrong.
By the time she knocks on the hotel door, she has had enough time to think once that this might not be what most people would call normal behavior, but not enough time to rethink her actions.
The door opens almost immediately.
“Hi,” Lena says, and then stops, the rest of the sentence seeming to lose its shape halfway through recognition. Then, softer, surprised in a very real and understandable way, “Kara! Oh my god, honey, what— what are you doing here?”
“You know I can only sleep when I'm next to you now.”
She blurts it out, and immediately, immediately, something in her head goes very still before everything else catches up and starts screaming.
That was… not phrased carefully. That was not phrased at all, actually. Kara most definitely should have thought this through.
Because now Lena is just looking at her.
Wide eyes. Still. Heart beating so fast, Kara is actually scared. And the pause doesn’t tell her anything yet, which is somehow worse than if it did.
And Kara cannot stop watching it.
She notices Lena’s expression before she even finishes noticing her own sentence.
The blink. The slight parting of her lips. The way her shoulders haven’t moved yet, like her body hasn’t decided what this moment is supposed to become.
Who does this?
No one does this.
Kara does this, apparently.
Oh Rao, who the hell flies across the world like it’s an impulse decision they forgot to justify? Who doesn't even give a warning first? Or ask for permission? Who just assumes things like she just did?
Kara swallows, hard.
Her hands feel suddenly too present in the room, like she should do something with them but doesn’t know what.
She watches Lena again. Lena is still looking at her. And it feels like too much. Like hours have passed with her standing inside this moment. Maybe she should back off. Say something that could pass as a joke or…
“Come in, honey.” Lena says, stepping aside. “I think you’re going to like this bed.”
And Kara exhales like she has been holding her breath since the second she arrived.
She follows. Still replaying the sentence she said. Still not sure where it ends. Still not sure if it was too much or just… true.
And there’s a pause in the room after she steps inside, quiet enough that it feels like something could happen in it if either of them decided to name it.
Kara looks at Lena for half a second too long and then, because her mouth is apparently not done making decisions without consulting her, “I’ve never actually made love anywhere outside of the US before.”
The silence breaks instantly.
Lena laughs. Immediate. Real. No hesitation.
“Well,” she says, like this is the most reasonable thing in the world, “come on then. Let’s change that.”
The apartment is quiet in the comfortable way it has become over the past few weeks.
Lena is stretched across one end of the couch with a book balanced on her knees, reading with the kind of concentration that makes the rest of the world disappear. Kara had been trying to watch whatever movie Alex insisted was "actually really good this time," but somewhere around twenty minutes ago she'd stopped paying attention.
Not because the movie was bad, but because Lena is right there. Looking like she could be a painting hanging in the Louvre, or what Goddesses would look like if Kara believed in any.
Sometimes Kara still catches herself doing this, looking at her for embarrassingly long stretches of time simply because she can now. Because for years she had taught herself not to stare too much, not to linger too long, not to let her face betray everything her heart had already decided. Now no one was asking her to hide anymore.
It turns out all that restraint had only been accumulating interest.
Lena turns another page. Without looking away from the book, she says, "You're staring."
"I am not."
"I can feel your eyes staring." Lena flashes a look at her. “What's wrong with the movie?”
"Not as interesting as you..."
That earns her a chuckle and then a smile. Kara smiles back automatically, still looking at her. She's thinking about how lucky she is, how Lena is amazing, how they've been together but-not-together for so long, how she wants life to stay exactly like this forever.
Which, in hindsight, is exactly the problem.
Her mind drifts. What would forever look like? How would she even sign her name? Kara Luthor. No. Doesn't roll off the tongue. Maybe Lena could take her last name. Lena Danvers.
...Hm.
Kara and Lena Danvers.
"Hm," she says out loud before she realizes she's speaking, "do you like Kara Luthor or Lena Danvers better?"
The page stops turning. Lena slowly looks up from her book, like a deer caught in the headlights, "What?"
Kara blinks.
Oh.
Oh no.
That was supposed to be said in her inside voice.
"I just..." Kara starts, then immediately wishes she hadn't, because now she's committed to explaining herself. "I was just thinking."
Lena waits. Which somehow makes everything worse.
"About names."
Kara can practically hear the alarm bells going off in her own head now.
Abort.
ABORT!
Except apparently her mouth has other ideas, "You know, like—" she laughs weakly, scratching the back of her neck. "Like what our kids would be called."
Silence.
Complete.
Utter.
Silence.
Kara can hear the refrigerator humming in the kitchen. A car passing twelve floors below. Lena's heartbeat.
Oh no. She covers her face with one hand. Oh, she made it so much worse. Why can't she control the things that come out of her mouth?
Lena is still staring, Kara can practically see the wheels turning inside of her mind. Oh Rao. She's freaked out. Of course she's freaked out. Who talks about children after two months into the relationship? People who have completely lost their minds, apparently.
She swallows deep, "You hungry? I'm hungry. We should—You know what? I'm going to go get dinner."
She is already halfway to the door before Lena finds her voice, "Kara."
"I'll fly to Italy for it.”
"Kara."
"I'll get you your favorite. I’ll be back before you miss me.”
Great. One more line she'll regret while she flies at the speed of light to another country.
She just needs to regroup. It's fine, she tells herself with her inside voice this time, just maybe don't mention wedding and kids for the next year and things will be fine!
By the time she makes it back, Kara has managed to talk herself down.
She'd had an entire flight (which, admittedly, lasted about forty-five seconds) to remember that Lena had smiled when she left. That she hadn't asked Kara to stop. That she hadn't looked horrified. Just... surprised. Which, in retrospect, was a perfectly reasonable reaction to someone casually bringing up hypothetical children before dinner.
Right.
She's fine.
They're fine.
Everything is fine.
Except for the fact that she keeps doing this.
Saying I love you too many times. Touching Lena whenever she's close enough to reach because now she can. Calling things ours without even noticing until the words have already left her mouth.
And Lena keeps looking at her with those wide, startled eyes. She never asks Kara to stop, but she never quite joins her there either, and Kara finds herself wondering if that tiny hesitation means more than she's supposed to read into it.
When Sam invites Lena to Ruby's graduation in Metropolis, Kara overhears her laughing into the phone, "Yeah, of course I'll come. Do you mind if Kara comes too?"
Kara doesn't think much of it. It's Ruby's graduation. Sam's invitation. It makes sense that Lena would ask.
But a few days later Eliza calls to invite her to Midvale for the weekend, and before Kara has even finished thinking about it, the words are already out of her mouth.
"Sounds good. We'll be there."
She only realizes what she's said after the call ends. Not I'll ask Lena. Not if Lena wants to come. Just we. Like there had never been another possibility. Like somewhere, without consulting either of them, her brain had quietly stopped making plans for one person.
It happens again later that week when Alex calls.
"Where are you?"
"Home,"
Alex grunts on the other side of the line. "No, you're not. I'm standing outside your apartment. And I have pizza, so I'm pretty sure if you were home, you'd have opened the door by now."
Kara frowns, instinctively checking with her x-ray vision to make sure Alex really is there before the words catch up with her. "Oh," she says, looking around the penthouse as though seeing it for the first time. "I'm at Lena's."
"Seriously," Alex mutters. "Why are you still paying rent?"
Kara laughs after they hang up, but the question lingers. Not because Alex is wrong. Because she's right.
At some point home had stopped meaning the apartment she'd rented years ago and started meaning wherever Lena happened to be. Kara can't even remember deciding that. She only knows that every future she imagines, no matter how ordinary, somehow already includes Lena in it. She doesn't have to remind herself to think in terms of we. She has to remember that maybe she isn't supposed to.
The apartment has long since gone quiet.
The dishes are still in the sink, abandoned in favor of sleep. Rain taps softly against the bedroom windows, blurring National City into little streaks of gold beyond the glass. Kara is halfway through an article on her phone she hasn't actually read a single sentence of, one arm wrapped loosely around Lena, who has been strangely thoughtful ever since dinner.
She assumes it's work. Or maybe the book Lena just finished reading.
Lena shifts against her, reaches up, and gently plucks the phone from Kara's hand before placing it on the nightstand.
Kara blinks, "Hey, I was reading!"
Then Lena cups her face and kisses her.
It's not hurried. Not desperate. It isn't trying to prove anything. It's slow enough that Kara forgets to breathe somewhere in the middle of it, smiling into Lena's mouth before she even realizes she's doing it.
When they finally pull apart, Kara rests their foreheads together.
"For that you can take my phone away anytime!"
Lena smiles and her thumb strokes lazily across Kara's cheek, "I've been thinking."
Kara laughs softly, "You do that a lot."
"I mean..." Lena smiles, almost shyly. "I've been thinking about what you said a few days ago."
Kara furrows her brows, thinking back, "Oh no, what did I say?"
"Luthor-Danvers."
Kara's eyebrows knit together.
"...What?"
"Luthor-Danvers, we hyphen it." Lena repeats, like she's presenting the conclusion to a problem she's spent days solving. "I think it sounds better."
Kara stares at her, turning her head to the side like a confused puppy.
"For our future kids." Lena explains herself.
For a second, Kara genuinely forgets how language works. Did Lena really just imply… a future?
"It took me a few days," Lena admits. "I wanted to get it right.”
Kara's mouth falls open, "You've been thinking about that this whole time?"
"I may have made a list."
"You made a list?"
"The names have to go nicely with the last name, I mean."
Kara laughs so hard she has to bury her face in Lena's shoulder.
"Oh my Rao."
"I know."
"I thought..." Kara shakes her head, still laughing in disbelief. "I thought I'd completely freaked you out."
Lena's smile softens.
"I know."
The laughter fades between them.
"I didn't answer and I knew that was going to freak you out. But it wasn't because I thought you were moving too fast." Lena's fingers find Kara's hand beneath the blankets, intertwining with hers. "I was staring because... no one's ever spoken about a future with me like it was already real."
Kara feels something tighten painfully behind her ribs.
"I kept waiting," Lena whispers, "for you to realize I was too much and—"
Kara doesn't even let her finish. She kisses her. Once. Twice. A third time just because she can. When she finally draws back, she's smiling so widely it almost hurts.
"You are too much," Kara says softly. "You're brilliant, and stubborn, and you overthink everything, and you're so beautiful it hurts sometimes." she smiles, brushing a strand of hair behind Lena's ear. "And I wouldn't change a single thing."
She pecks Lena's mouth, "You're mine."
Lena closes her eyes for a moment, letting the words settle somewhere deep inside her.
Kara brushes her finger on Lena’s lips, her heart so impossibly full she thinks it might actually spill over. She smiles, leaning in until their lips are barely touching.
"Mine." she whispers again.
Lena smiles against her mouth.
"Forever."
