The prompt: Nia’s tasked with building one of those buzzfeed style quizzes and the theme is “Which Superfriend Would You Marry?” She sends it on their group chat as a test run. Kara and Lena are having a movie night and they take the test together. Lena gets Dreamer as a result . Kara’s immediate, not censored reaction is to say that there must be something wrong with it because there’s no way Lena would get Nia. The (fun) thing is, Kara and Lena aren’t dating (until that night oc).
“Which Superfriend would you marry?”
Lena promptly chokes on her mouthful of red wine, coughing and spluttering as her cheeks flush a deep puce. “Excuse me?”
Which— right. She probably could have phrased that differently. Kara grimaces, reaching out to rub soothingly over Lena’s back as her best friend tries valiantly to expel the last of the alcohol from her lungs.
“It’s a quiz. Craft Your Perfect Taco to Find Out Which Superfriend You Would Marry,” she explains once Lena’s breathing has settled, nudging closer on the couch to hook her chin over Lena’s shoulder. “Nia made it after Andrea decided Catco was going to become the new Buzzfeed within the week or we were all going to lose our jobs. I guess she finally finished it?”
Kara tilts her phone between them, showing Lena the message. “She sent it in the group chat. Wants us all to try it to make sure there are no bugs.”
“Which group chat?” Lena asks, hitting pause on the movie and rooting through their nest of blankets and pillows for her own phone. “Superfiends? Brain Train 2: Intergalactic Boogaloo? Alex Danvers' Blue Eyeshadow Support Group? America’s Ass?”
“Woops.” Lena presses her lips together, blinking big and angelic. “You might not be in that one.”
Kara’s frown deepens. She pouts up at her best friend as Lena pushes up from the couch to refill their glasses, bottom lip at maximum extension. “You guys have a group chat without me?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Lena calls from the kitchen over the sound of pouring wine. “Tell me more about this quiz.”
Kara huffs. “You know I can’t be that easily distracted, right?”
Lena crosses back to the couch, depositing their drinks on the coffee table and flopping down beside her. She presses close, curling into Kara’s side in a cloud of expensive perfume. “Of course you can’t, darling,” Lena soothes, stroking a consoling hand over her forearm as she drops a large bag noisily into Kara’s lap. “Look, popcorn.”
Kara beams, ripping into the snack and devouring it with gusto. “Okay, so, the quiz,” she mumbles around a loud mouthful. “I guess we should take it separately? Nia wants as many guinea pigs as possible.”
Lena nods, settling in at Kara’s side as she unlocks her phone. She’s really close, and she smells really good, and her teal cashmere sweater is really soft against Kara’s skin so she makes the executive decision to hook her chin back over Lena’s shoulder. Just, like, for convenience.
“Hey!” Lena’s fingers dig lightly against her ribs, and Kara squirms. “No cheating.”
“How am I gonna cheat?” she huffs, but pulls her head back anyway, settling for hooking her pinkie through Lena’s belt loop instead. “This is a quiz designed to tell me who I should marry: my sister, my sister-in-law, my honorary father, my little brother, or his girlfriend. The results are gonna be pretty funky whichever way you slice ‘em.”
“Still,” Lena hums, wiggling her socked feet beneath Kara’s thigh. “Eyes to yourself, Ms Zor-El."
The loft falls silent as they tap away at their respective screens. She has to hand it to Nia; this quiz is no walk in the park. She spends a solid ninety seconds deliberating between pico de gallo and guac on her tacos, and is just making a mental note to tell Nia to add an all of the above option to every
question when Lena sucks in a sharp breath, lets it out in a giggle.
“What?” Kara asks, craning her neck to get a look at the other woman’s screen. “Did you finish already? Who did you get?”
Lena’s still laughing, head tipped back, the elegant line of her throat exposed. Kara forces her eyes away from the arc of creamy skin, reaching over to pluck Lena’s phone from her limp fingers.
“Dreamer?” she all but shrieks, reading the name on the screen once, twice, three times. “You? And Dreamer? You and Dreamer? Dreamer?”
“Apparently so,” Lena laughs, head tipping back against the cushions. “Do you think Nia set herself as the only possible answer?”
“Apparently not, since I just got matched with Sentinel.” Kara shudders, the mere suggestion too icky to contemplate for long. She stares at Lena, who’s still chuckling.
“I can’t believe you got Dreamer,” Kara huffs, teeth grinding. “That’s ridiculous. I’m gonna tell Nia her quiz doesn’t work.”
Lena presses her lips together, holding back a smirk. Kara’s eyes get stuck there a moment; on the pretty pink sweep of plump flesh, the delicate bow, the deep plum tint left over from her wine.
“Why is it so ridiculous?” Lena chuckles, white teeth digging into the plush of her bottom lip. Kara’s eyes follow the indentation, the willing yield of her flesh to the pressure. She watches the way Lena’s mouth moves, entranced by the formation of words she’s barely registering.
When Lena’s mouth stops moving altogether, Kara manages to tear her eyes away only to find her best friend is staring at her pointedly, looking decidedly unimpressed.
Right. Lena had asked a question.
“It just— it’s wrong,” she manages at length, feeling a little like she’s having to manually fire her own synapses just to make her brain focus on anything besides the sight of Lena’s mouth. “The quiz is obviously faulty.”
“Why?” Lena repeats, a hint of indignation beginning to bleed into her tone. “I love Nia very much. There are certainly worse matches.”
“Yeah, but there’s also way better ones,” Kara insists. The collar of her shirt feels too tight all of a sudden, the room too hot and the air too stifling.
One perfectly manicured eyebrow quirks. “Such as?”
Kara opens her mouth. Closes it again. Opens it once more. “Well, I mean—”
Lena’s brow lifts another quarter inch. “Yes?”
“Lena, come on.” She doesn’t know why she’s so adamant on making this point. She just knows that Lena and Nia, it’s— it’s wrong. She just needs Lena to see that too. “You can’t honestly— Rao, if you were going to marry any of us it wouldn’t be Dreamer, it would be—”
Her jaw snaps shut with an audible click that echoes through the suddenly silent living room.
Kara’s heart is pounding. Her fists are clenched around the corners of an unsuspecting throw pillow, her breaths coming in short, ragged bursts. She becomes aware of this, mainly, because of how conspicuous her own noisy exhales are in comparison to Lena. Lena, who all of a sudden doesn’t appear to be breathing at all.
“Who?”
Lena’s voice is barely a whisper. In the unearthly quiet of the loft, it feels deafening.
Kara swallows, sandpaper rough. Doesn’t answer. Can’t.
Lena’s gaze is so heavy it feels like a physical touch. “Who, Kara?”
“I—” Her voice cracks. She clears her throat, takes a deep breath. “I don’t—”
Lena’s voice is a lit fuse, a thunderstorm on the horizon. “If not Nia, then who?”
The tension stretching the space between them pulls taught, wrought as overworked metal.
The goldfish clock on the wall counts the silent passage of time. Twenty seconds. Thirty.
She watches Lena. Lena watches her. Her lips aren’t smiling anymore. They’re pressed together, braced and tight.
Every molecule of air in Kara’s lungs shudders out at once. Her chest caves, shoulders slumping. The thread between them snaps, disappearing back into the ether. “I don’t know.”
Lena’s eyes widen a little, then narrow. The line of her jaw hardens infinitesimally. “Well, then. Maybe you shouldn’t be in such a hurry to pass judgment.”
Kara nods, cowed. Curls in on herself, hugging the pillow to her chest. Nia’s quiz doesn’t seem so fun anymore. In fact, their whole evening feels sour, curdling rotten in the pit of her stomach.
The movie restarts. Lena’s gaze is fixed on the screen but she isn’t watching, not really. Her eyes don’t follow the action, don’t move, don’t even blink.
Kara watches her, throat clogged with the contents of her slashed-wide heart, afraid to set it free lest its welcome be less than warm.
They don’t speak until the movie ends, some bland easy-listening tune rolling over the credits. It’s barely gotten to the first chorus when Lena shifts, rooting through the blankets for her discarded phone and reaching for her purse on the coffee table.
Kara sees the dismissal, the looming escape, in the tense lines of Lena’s shoulders. Hears it in the
fraught silence between them before Lena even says a word. “Well, I should probably—”
Panic flares hot through her muscles and suddenly, vicious as a lightning strike, the dam behind Kara’s teeth cracks.
“Me,” she interrupts, desperate and half-wild.
Lena freezes, halfway off the couch, one foot planted on the floor while the other pushes awkwardly against the couch cushions. “What?”
“God, me.” She doesn’t want to say it again. She says it again anyway. “Not Nia. Me."
Lena’s mouth falls open, a soundless breath escaping her. Her toes twitch against the couch cushions. “What— what are you saying?”
Kara takes a deep breath. The dam has cracked, now. Little point trying to hold back the flood.
“I’m saying, if you’re gonna take a stupid quiz about which of the Superfriends you should marry then the right answer – the only answer – is me.” Kara bites hard at the inside of her cheek. The sting helps to centre her, calms her rapid breathing enough to get the words out. “I’m saying that if you were to marry anyone, anyone in the galaxy, then I’d want— I’d hoped it might be me.”
For a long moment, Lena doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Only stares at Kara, wide-eyed.
Then, slowly, achingly slowly, she sinks back onto the couch beside her. Across the desolate chasm between their bodies, their knees brush. Lena’s voice is very, very quiet. “I’d hoped it might be you, too.”
Kara’s breath hitches. Lena’s eyes are so green it almost hurts to look at them. “Yeah?”
Lena’s mouth, always captivating, quirks into the beginnings of a smile so radiant it could outshine the brightest sun. “Yeah.”
Kara swallows. Snakes her fingers out to where Lena’s rest on the cushion between them, twining tight. “Wow,” she breathes, breathless and still a little disbelieving. “Wow. So, are we— are we really
doing this?”
Lena chuckles, squeezing their joined hands. “What, getting married?”
Kara flushes, a heady suffusion of white-hot joy coursing through her veins. “I mean, maybe we could start with dinner,” she chuckles, and Lena nods. Kara tilts her chin until they’re eye to eye. Lets the last blissful secret of her heart run free. “But, one day? Absolutely.”
Lena’s cheeks flush a delicate pink, eyelashes fluttering. “Deal.”
It’s natural, then, the way Lena folds into her. The way their bodies slot together on the couch like interlocking helices, Lena’s head on her shoulder, arms around her waist. Kara encircles her ribcage in turn, holding her tight, peppering the sweet planes of her face with the lightest dusting of kisses. She revels in the softness of Lena’s skin beneath her lips, the way her cheeks heat beneath the tender ministrations into a blush Kara can feel against her mouth.
“I cannot believe,” Lena hums, knuckles tracing the planes of Kara’s stomach through her shirt, “that after six years the thing that finally got us to this point was Nia Nal’s taco quiz.”
Kara snorts, nosing into Lena’s hairline to inhale the warm untempered essence of her. “God, I know,” she chuckles, pulling Lena a little tighter against her. “We’re ridiculous.”
Lena hums, burrowing against her chest, and Kara thinks she could stay here forever quite happily, actually. That she might never need anything else again.
A thought strikes her suddenly and she tenses hard enough that above her, Lena does too. She raises her head so their gazes can meet, green eyes wide and apprehensive. “What is it, darling?”
“Did you choose salsa rojo or salsa verde for your tacos?” Kara rushes out, wide-eyed. “Because now I'm worried I made the wrong call, what if—”
Lena only laughs, and halts all further taco talk with a kiss.
(95% Supercorp stuff) Mostly cause I’m sick of having all these tabs up, and you know, spread the word of the good stuff for a variety of good reasons and vibes. Special thanks to @storyiicharacter cause I’m technically inept. Buckle up y’all, this is the good shit right here.
Just enjoy this authors work here
Again all but esp thicker than water and second chances for fill in scenes
I recommend everything here but esp the pirate AU the medieval AU and the pirate AU again cause it’s amazing
Not sure what chapter I landed on with this link but the author is awesome so go explore ok
The cape cod AU that’s legit hilarious, enjoy their other works as well including a delightfully painfully awkward pregnancy, the only agentcorp I’ll ever accept, and some other good things
All all all I love it and deliverance kept me alive like some kind of magic on a really long week
Still one of my faves I reread parts of it pretty damn frequently it’s a tv show AU that’s super well done
Superhearing is a sinful mess fic
Oddly enough one of these was one of the first ones I ever read and I couldn’t track it down ever but here this author is great and includes the bloody laundry AU, the beauty and the beast AU, and some of the best substantial fluff you can find and it’s all right here
Side streets bike messenger AU, and a whoooole lotta Director Danvers it’s yay
One of those childhood slowburn AUs
I don’t even remember what this is but there are high school AUs and angst if you want those
Y’all know this one but Lena and the worldkillers will forever the best damn band name ever so it has to be here
A just like heaven AU that’s hilarious then sweet, a lot of substantive fluff in shorter form, and more!
I’m a sucker for a drunken story and this one is hella good
Tbh it’s kinda unpopular to admit you like the mime more than the sugar baby but I do
Sometimes I read Christmas AUs in July sue me we all do what we want
Maybe if we all comment nice things the best damn soccer AU I’ve ever seen will get updated (also pls send me soccer fic recs if ya got em)
Instructions: read if having a bad day. Become obsessed with the Winter Olympics. Repeat.
A good old sweatshirt stealing fluff one plus the author has other stuff
Honestly I even love their clown AU everything this author has is gold
This one will make you want to join a roller derby team feat. Agent Reign
The underappreciated siblings club that is life I repeat it is life
Some deserted road at 2 am and a cautious reunion to mix it up
One of those based-on-a-movie things where one of them can’t believe they let the other go
Check out all their works, Kara being unable to get a tatto is the funniest
CatCo exclusive that is so well written the show just needs to hire the author like three years ago thx
Featuring Some lovely texting while Lena is out of town, this’ll make you smile guaranteed
Fluffs and fix its, paw through when you’re sad they’re good
OH MY GOD ANOTHER SOCCER FIC also they have great stuff just below it
Some hella long ass novels that I’m honestly shocked aren’t published, can’t lie I’m not sure I’ve finished any of them but if you’re into the long game these are your fix
NERD ICON SCIENCE FIC consider this The Martian of Supergirl fics ok
I don’t remember what this is and I’m sorry but if I kept the tab up there’s a 62% chance it was good so you might as well click it too and I’m pretty sure there was a lot of phone convos in this?
CatCo as buzzfeed, prof cuddler Kara Danvers, and some others they’re awesome ok just peruse
Essentially a short version of the first chapter of the nerd icon fic but it ditches the concept of a slowburn and yes there is platonic bed sharing
Top 3 recommeded authors: this one. I’m not even gonna start the injustice of picking my fave of their stuff.
Top 3 softest yet most substantial fics that will fill an ache in your soul you didn’t realize you had: this. Check out their other stuff for some world turning
Not even sure I’ve read this but Spider-Man homecoming AU
hahahah classic but very well done you’ll enjoy this easy read
This AU AU will mess you up and beware it’s not finished
A sinful, yet emotional author
One way ticket to angstville with a possible connecting train to tearstown
The wives fic that’s just hilarious
This would be the model AU that I didn’t think I’d be into but then I was so you too will probly enjoy can’t lie
Another that I literally don’t remember what it is but it’s probs ok
Not safe for work because of emotions I cried so hard reading this and then I hated myself so I read it again and there are three works in the series you’ll cry at all of them if you have a soul and crap I’m crying just thinking about it
Ok that’s all I got for now but feel free to reblog with your own additions if you got faves you wanna share
Wow I love this question! Anon I feel like you truly know me.
1. to re-fashion the matrix of creation by poiesis and seabiscuit: in which Lena and Kara make a baby out of spit off the lip of a shared wineglass
2. Couches Have Feelings Too by yellowclock: from the point of view of Lena’s couch
3. A Perfect Pair by littlebrother: from the point of view of Lena’s eyebrows
4. Mime AU by karalovesallthegirls: in which Kara is a professional mime
5. Scalped by rockiedogs: in which Kara… licks Lena’s bald head
Bonus: Know Your Own by Stonestrewn: an original story about a woman who falls in love with a big weird amphibian alien. It was published long before The Shape of Water and is better and gayer and one of my all time favorite things on ao3
Despite the various rumors fluttering around the office, Lena is not a robot. She just has a particular way of doing things and wanting things done. She isn’t heartless, nor is she purposely malicious. She just expects the same level of excellence from others as she expects from herself. Naturally, his hasn’t won her many friends.
According to the rumors Lena has no sense of joy or pleasure, but that’s definitely not true! Her greatest pleasure in fact is the forty five minute block she gets every single day for lunch, and like clockwork she finds herself on her favorite bench in her favorite part of the park, eating her favorite lunch (a tomato sandwich, no crust, a small salad, and a bag of grapes). This is her one time each day to spend in silence and solitude away from the annoyed whispers and glares, and Lena treasures this space.
This makes the day the mime appeared especially heinous.
All at once her quiet patch of park is filled with excited crowds of tourists all gawking at some face painted buffoon battling invisible enemies. Like clockwork she is there, this stupid fool, building invisible walls and walking against powerful gusts of wind, boxing in delighted children and parents alike. And while that in itself is insufferable enough, for whatever reason the mime always tries to (quite literally) lasso Lena into her acts. There have been at least a dozen invisible lassos, fishing lines, and even baseballs thrown Lena’s way in bids for her attention, but all are steadfastly ignored and rejected. Fools will not be humored. Still, the mime persists.
Today perhaps will be a day of peace, though, as storm clouds have threatened since early morning and the air is filled with a sense of gloom. Surely the fool will opt to stay in her little mime home rather than venture out. Lunch bag in hand and a smile on her face, Lena nearly skips her way into the mostly empty park back towards her beloved corner. She stops short when she sees the fool there alone, miming out scenes all by herself. Truly Lena’s life will never know peace, and all the resentment that has been building over the weeks of this torture come bubbling out as she snaps,
“You look like a buffoon.”
The mime jumps back in exaggerated surprise, painted on eyebrows high and expressive. Lena feels her eye twitch at the sight. She truly hates this clown.
“Every day you’re here, and it’s stupid. You’re stupid. And ridiculous. Also, I hope you know no one likes you.”
The fool clutches tightly at her chest as if Lena’s words are daggers burying deep in her heart. She staggers, clutching at the invisible handle of Lena’s knife, nearly stumbling to her knees. It only makes Lena angrier, and she moves to storm past only for the fool to grab her arm, touching her for the first time. The mime waves her hand in a negative manner, trying to pull Lena away from her bench. Lena rips her hand free.
“Don’t you dare touch me,” she snaps again, and tries to step around only for the fool again to step in her way. She’s pulled her hands together now in a submissive plea, her eyes begging Lena to stop, but with a huff Lena blows past her and sits down with an angry thump. The mime cringes visibly.
Lena knows her mistake almost immediately, the damp cold sinking through her clothes before she even notices the WET PAINT sign. Without thinking Lena jumps up with angry cry, her back now striped with lines of brown and her lunch bag tumbled to the ground. The mime cringes again, her body made small as she gestures down, and Lena realizes that the fool is pointing towards the rather muddy puddle her lunch has fallen into. Lena presses her hands over her face then, lets out a long angry huff of air as she feels her will to live slither to the mud below, and after a moment she looks up to see the mime shuffling awkwardly back and forth with a worried look in her eyes. Like everything the fool does, it’s infuriating.
“Really?” Lena drawls, “You couldn’t just say ‘hey, the paint is wet.’ You had to try and mime it to me?”
The fool shrugs haplessly, gives her a surprisingly pretty smile for someone whose face is covered in white and black makeup, then holds up her finger as if to say wait a moment. Lena considers just going home and never returning to this job as the mime goes and fumbles through the backpack she always leaves resting against the nearby oak tree. After a moment she returns with a pack of wet wipes and what looks to be a sandwich wrapped in tin foil. She holds them out as an offering to Lena with a bright, goofy smile. Hesitantly, Lena accepts the wet wipes but eyes the sandwich wearily. The mime seems confused at this, but then lights up as if realizing something great and once again fumbles around her backpack before pulling out a knife. Lena watches as the fool sits cross-legged on the floor with the sandwich balanced on her lap and carefully unwraps the foil to reveal what looks to be a tomato sandwich.
Slowly, the fool cuts the crust away.
She dusts her hands dramatically and carefully gathers the crust to discard, then offers the sandwich again. She seems so earnest in this moment that before Lena’s brain can catch up her hands are already reaching out to accept the offering. The mime gives her a smile of pure joy at that, and Lena is pleasantly surprised to peek in and see it is in fact a tomato sandwich prepared just the way she likes it. She’s not sure if she should feel flattered or terrified.
Suddenly a techno beat chirps from the mime’s back pocket, and she watches as she pulls the phone out and answers a call. Lena is prepared to fight her right then but, surprisingly, the mime doesn’t say a word. She just listens and hums occasionally before hanging up. She gestures towards herself, then points away. Lena nods. She pulls a few wet wipes out and tries to hand the pack back, but the fool dramatically gestures for her to keep it. With a flourish she slings her backpack over her shoulder and takes a bow, then much to Lena’s irritation presses a kiss to her own palm, clenches her fist as if she held it there, then with a big wind up throws it at Lena. Lena just glares at her, mentally picturing the kiss bouncing off her and landing in the grass. The fool mimes a deep belly laugh and shoots her a wink before skipping away.
Lena ends up settled in the grass with her suit jacket laid before her, scrubbing at it with wipes while munching on the sandwich. Her eyes keep flitting to the spot where she’d pictured the kiss rebounding, and it’s so stupid of her to even think about it but it continues to pull her. Her phone alarm beeps her five minute warning, and she pulls her still faintly painted jacket back on her shoulders. As she begins to push herself up, she pauses again over the spot in the grass.
With a quick glance around, she reaches hesitantly out and grabs at the air over the spot, holds her hand in a fist as if something secret were hidden within her grip. Hesitantly, she slides her hand into her pocket, opens it as if to let go.
She can feel her face go red at her foolishness and she jumps up with a huff, all but sprinting her way back to work.
Such a fool.
Lena was a good person who had a lot of potential in life.
So what if she didn't accomplish as much as her brother? That doesn't make her a fraud. She was a good person - if not in practice than at least in theory. She still deserved to be in the Good Place.
Lena Luthor doesn't plan to have any kids. Or to get married, even, really. After the revelation that she is actually of Luthor blood after all, she's quite set on ending the family line with her and not taking the risk of any more drama. Then Lorelai L. Danvers crashes into her life, claiming to be her seventeen year old daughter from the future. (picking up after 2x12)
Lena makes Kara feel like she’s vibrating, like her nerve endings are alight with electricity and it’s intoxicating to say the least. (Tentatively, 4 interruptions + 1 free night.)
"Lena," Kara asks, "what are you to me?" Lena's heartbeat stutters. "You—you said there was no memory loss," she stammers. "Kara, what—what happened?" "I absorbed my sun," Kara tells her calmly. "I became a God." (In which Kara becomes a deity of protection, and it complicates things just a little. Featuring: a determined big sister, an endlessly supportive love interest, and some dad advice.)
“I hope we can be friends,” she says and Lena’s throat feels thick at the sound of it. “I care about you, you know.”
Heat spikes in the back of Lena’s eyes. “Friends,” she repeats. “Of course. Why couldn’t we be?”
The answer is obvious. They were never really friends, even when they technically were. Lena has zero idea how Kara plans to manage it now with all their history between them.
A sort of retelling of S2 under the premise that Lena and Kara went to college together and dated.
