written for @ekingston's flash fiction challenge! :)
this was fun!! the prompts i got were: thriller, only survivors of a zombie apocalypse, celebrity/just some guy (gender neutral), and blood. thematically consistent, at least. tw for (a fairly small amount of) blood and gore, unsurprisingly. enjoy!
+
Someone is breathing on the other side of the vehicle.
No, Kara reminds herself yet again. Something.
It’s hard to say when the simple sound of another creature breathing became an instant trigger to send adrenaline coursing through her veins. Every tiny hair on her body rises. Her heart rate accelerates until she can feel it behind her teeth, a war drum. She moves with utmost caution; she cannot make a sound.
There’s a creak of metal. A low groan.
Kara recognizes the sound. The pleading moan of perverse hunger.
She can’t see it, as she creeps around the passenger side of the dark vehicle. The thing must be inside the car. The sound came from low down, though. Maybe it’s on the ground. Unsurprising—they always seem to end up there in the end. After having exhausted the limits of human muscle, with no prey left to chase down, they collapse like expended cargo.
The car is a solid black Rolls-Royce. A rare sight in the city, let alone out here. This one has seen better days, though. Shiny paint marred by dust, pock-marked with dents, half the bumper hanging off. How it ended up swerved into the ditch of this rural, two-lane road is a mystery.
Probably someone trying to escape.
Kara’s mind constructs the story even as she rounds the front of the car, reaching for her weapons. It must have contained someone wealthy or important, someone with the resources to get this far. But they must have been infected before they could escape. Though shaken, they would have attempted to brush it off. Nothing but a scrape. The teeth had barely punctured their skin. They would have sped away, gotten off the interstate at the first chance, taken turn after turn until they found a safe, isolated road. This is how far they got before the alien pathogens hijacked their brain.
But that would mean—Kara’s pulse spikes again—that would mean the creature on the other side of this vehicle is the most dangerous kind. Starved for the taste of human flesh. Not spent, but with the full power of the human body. When used without regard for muscles tearing, flesh rending, bones breaking, it could do remarkable things.
Kara knows. She has witnessed it.
The way Alex moved, when the disease took hold…
She shudders. Pushes the image from her mind. That thing hadn’t been Alex anymore.
Kara considers her weapons. A large kitchen knife. A small handgun—the better bet. Not much ammunition left, though. She’ll have to move quickly. She’ll have to make it count.
She lifts the gun, then lunges around the front of the car and fires.
The shot echoes across the scrubby hills. A shriek rings out, black hair flying as the creature shields itself. It begins to turn to her. She missed. Kara’s finger is pushing down on the trigger again when a voice cries, “Wait! Wait!”
She wrenches the gun aside. Her shot flies wide.
There is nothing but heaving breathing in the wake. Human breathing.
The woman crouched on the ground, staring up at Kara in terrified shock, is alive. Truly alive. What’s more, Kara knows her.
“How are you here?” Kara says. The cognitive dissonance of seeing that face here, now, is so intense that she wonders if she’s hallucinating.
“What?” says Lena Luthor. “Why are you trying to kill me? Do I know you?”
We’ve met before.
“No.” Kara feels herself flush. How absurd that she’s even capable of such a reaction anymore. “I’m nobody.”
Lena Luthor stands on unsteady legs. “No, you’re that reporter. From… BuzzFeed, was it? You came to my office with Clark Kent.”
“CatCo Magazine,” Kara corrects automatically. It feels like a lifetime since she was Cat Grant’s assistant, barely daring to aspire to journalism. Struck nearly speechless by the presence of this woman—her inarguable celebrity crush.
Embarrassing.
Lena looks uneasily at the gun. Kara realizes it’s still pointing in her direction. She drops her arm. “Shoot. Sorry.”
“Don’t shoot, preferably,” Lena says dryly. It takes a second for Kara to realize it’s a joke.
“I wasn’t trying to— I thought you were… one of them. You’re not infected, are you?”
“None of them have touched me. This thing is bullet-proof. I did plow through a few of them…” Lena looks queasy. Kara follows her gaze to the front of the car. There’s blood congealed on the grill.
A flash of memory. She sees the creature that was once Winn charging at her. Her panicked swipe of the kitchen knife across its throat. The spray of his blood, copious, vibrant, across her shirt, across the pavement. For hours, she was terrified the blood had found its way into some scrape, some opening. Infecting her.
She grimaces, presses her thumb hard into the space between her eyes. Stop.
“Where did you even come from?” Lena says. “There’s nothing around here.”
“I walked from the city. I’ve been trying to find anywhere with supplies. There was a group of us. I’m the only one left.” That awful, leaden truth. Kara pushes past it. “How did you get out? I haven’t seen anyone else in weeks.”
“I hid in my office. I had it outfitted as a kind of bunker years ago. I thought I was being insane at the time, and yet…” She trails off, ashamed. “I did nothing to help. Nothing. I stayed there until it quieted down. Then I took the car, and I ran.”
“You couldn’t have done much. No one could have.”
“And now my stupid tire blew, and I am somehow incapable of changing it, so I’m pretty much fucked.” Lena kicks the deflated tire. “Fuck!”
“Your tire?” Belatedly, Kara notices the spare lying on the ground, alongside a toolbox and a badly misplaced jack. She feels a wild urge to laugh. That’s it? “I can fix your tire.”
“Really?”
“Of course.” She swallows. Remembers that somehow, Lena Luthor is standing in front of her. A woman who Kara has followed extensively in tabloids for years. A world leader for tech. Generous. Brilliant. Beautiful. “On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Take me with you.”
Lena Luthor leans against her car and, miraculously, grins. She gives Kara a lingering once-over. “Where are you going?”
“Anywhere. Away from here. I need to find out what happened to my cousin. And my mom.”
“Well, I could use the company,” Lena says. “It’s a deal.”
She holds out her hand. Kara shakes it. At the feel of Lena’s hand in hers, warm, chapped, alive, Kara feels a spark of something she hasn’t felt for ages, since before her life turned into a nightmare.
Lena is laughing softly at her, and Kara can feel the buzz of it where Lena’s back presses into her thighs. She huffs, irritated. “You want spontaneous? Fine.” She reaches down to Lena’s hand, currently maneuvering her controller, and slips the ring off her thumb. “Here.”
Lena cranes her neck away from the TV to stare up at Kara, thumbs stalling on the buttons. “Hey, that’s my—what are you doing?”
Kara presents the ring before her. “Lena Luthor,” she starts. “You’ve been the love of my life for almost as long as I can remember and my best friend for even longer. And I would be… beyond happy to spend every moment of the rest of our lives together. Marry me?”
.
or, five times Kara proposes to Lena at game night, and one time they get engaged.
El Mayara, Lena says, and those are the words that crack something inside Kara’s chest wide open.
Lena’s hands are gentle against her shoulders, holding her steady as she starts to cry. Hey, hey it’s okay falls from her lips, and the crack in Kara’s chest widens, pushes at her ribcage, a deep crater of an ache. And it's there, stronger than ever—the desperate need for Lena to understand. It fills her bloodstream.
Because Lena means so much to her that sometimes she can’t breathe for it. Because Kara can’t stand living in a world where Lena doesn’t know that, even for a second.
“Of all the friends I have ever had,” Kara says, trying hard not to let her voice crack, “you have pushed me the most. Challenged me the most.” Made me laugh the most. Made me cry the most. Hated me the most. Loved me the most.
And Lena, sweet, beautiful, wonderful Lena, who she would go to hell and back for, essentially has, pulls her into a hug.
“You’ve made me a better person,” Lena whispers, her arms tight around Kara’s shoulders, her cheek pressed to Kara’s, and the words vibrate like music through Kara’s skin. “Thank you.”
There’s a weight in the pit of Kara’s stomach. One that she’s been carrying around for years, one that she’s gotten so used to the feel of that she’s forgotten at times that it was there. Forgot it was there until she was drowning and it was pulling her down down deep. Now, with Lena squeezing her shoulders, eyes brimming with tears, it lifts. And something clicks into place.
She sees her future with more blinding clarity than ever before. Supergirl set aside, living freely as herself, not forcing herself to shoulder the world’s burdens alone. Game nights with her friends, play dates with her niece, late nights falling asleep in her office at CatCo. And Lena. Lena Lena Lena. Lena at every turn. There’s no version of her future where she doesn’t wake up with Lena beside her.
When Kara cups Lena’s cheek in her palm, Lena smiles.
It’s soft. Lena’s lips against hers, the feel of her smile, the salty tinge of their tears. Quiet and unhurried, the last piece of the puzzle falling into place. Lena kisses her back, and it feels like the first breath she’s taken in years. It feels like relief suffusing every inch of her body, grounding her to the earth.
There are many versions of Kara. Supergirl, Kara Danvers, Kara Zor-El.
For now, they settle into just one.
“Kara! Lena! Come on!” Nia calls from the road.
They break away, and Lena wipes away tears, something between a laugh and a sob catching in her throat. She takes a deep breath in, and smiles.
Her hand slips into Kara’s, squeezing lightly as they turn towards the rest of the party. “You okay?”
“I’m okay,” Kara says, wiping her own eyes and smiling over at Lena. “I’m not alone anymore.”
“You never have been, darling.”
They walk across the field hand in hand. Together, they watch Kelly and Alex drive off into the distance, bells clanging, everyone waving and yelling after them. Kara doesn’t let go of Lena’s hand, and Lena doesn’t let go of hers.
“So let me get this straight,” Sam says, grinning and leaning back against Lena’s desk. “You’re going on a destination-less road trip with Kara, and only Kara, for two weeks?”
“That is the plan, yes,” Lena says, half distracted by the endless stream of emails in her inbox.
“So, you’re telling me you’re spending two weeks confined to a car with Kara Danvers and no one else as a buffer. Just you and Kara, alone together for two weeks. And this is why you need me to temporarily take over as CEO.”
“Yes, Sam.”
Sam bursts out laughing. She holds up a hand, trying to suppress it, but then something in Lena’s expression sets her off again and she’s wheezing. Lena watches in bewilderment as she wipes the corners of her eyes. “Oh honey. You are absolutely fucked.”
+
With L-Corp in chaos and Lena on the verge of a mental breakdown, Kara proposes an escape: a road trip up the West Coast. The only problem? It's just the two of them and a car on the road for two weeks, and it's getting increasingly difficult for Lena to deny the fact that she's maybe, slightly, desperately in love with her best friend.
if you’re still taking prompts, can you do happiness #1?
Before we launch into 6b next week, here's a small fantasy of a scene that I wish the cw would give us. Happiness #1 from this prompt list again.
“I’ve loved you since the day we met.”
“Alex calls it The Honesty Policy.”
Lena takes the mug of hot chocolate Kara offers, cradling it between her hands. “The Honesty Policy?” she asks, as Kara sits down on the couch beside her.
“I imagine Kelly probably fed it to her,” Kara says. “But she was helping me try to figure out how we could get ourselves… well, back to normal, after everything, and she was really insistent that this one was worth a try.”
“What is it?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. No more secrets,” Kara says, tapping her own collarbone, then fixing her gaze pointedly on Lena. “No more lying. We tell each other things. We’re honest. We trust each other with our secrets.”
Lena nods, looking down into her mug of hot chocolate. The dim lights of Kara’s loft glow orange across her cheekbones, and in the silence, the sounds of late-night passing cars rumble up from the street below. It’s the first time they’ve really spent time truly alone together since… well everything.
There’s still a lot of awkwardness between them; turns out secrets and betrayal and double-crossing—and the fact that forgiveness was barely hatching between them when Kara was banished to the phantom zone—will do that to a friendship. There was the initial hug, of course, after Kara was rescued, when Lena wrapped her arms around Kara and buried her face in Kara’s neck and held her so tightly that Kara was certain she’d never let go, her breath coming in ragged gasps and her whole body quivering. It was somewhat surreal, the warm shock of having Lena in her arms after so many months, her hair against Kara’s cheek, the muted scent of her shampoo. They’d sank to the floor, still holding each as the ship creaked around them, and stayed there for god knows how long in each other arms.
But since then, since that initial wordless embrace that felt as much like coming home as anything, they haven’t known what to say to each other. They work together easily enough, the animosity between Supergirl and Lena finally gone, but it’s more difficult when they’re just Kara and Lena. They’ve forgiven each other, Kara thinks. Or at least agreed to forgive each other, even if there’s still work to be done. But it’s weird. It’s not like they can snap straight back into how things were before.
Hence The Honesty Policy.
“Okay,” Lena says finally. “Yes. No more secrets. A clean start.”
A clean start. It’s what they need, after an entire friendship where one or the other of them has been hiding things. For the first time, everything between them will be out in the open. Nothing left to hide.
It’s oddly freeing.
Kara takes a sip of her hot chocolate. “So, where do we start?”
“Start?”
“I think we should have just an honest conversation. I don’t want this to be awkward anymore, I want to be able to talk to you like we used to. So, in the interest of honesty, tell me something you’ve never told me before. It doesn’t have to be big—” she adds hurriedly, when Lena’s eyes widen in alarm. “Something small. Something tiny you’ve never had reason to tell me.”
Lena nods slowly, thinking. “In the interest of honesty…” she starts. “In the interest of honesty, I… I really think that those bangs were a mistake.”
Kara makes a noise of offended disbelief in the back of her throat. “I—Rude!”
“You said to be honest!” Lena says, biting her lip like she’s holding back a laugh. “They’re growing out now, anyways. It looks much better.”
Kara gives her bangs a self-conscious pat. They’re still at a slightly awkward length, but they’re long enough to blend in semi-decently with the rest of her hair now. “If we’re being honest, then,” she says. “I think that blouse is really ugly.”
Lena looks down at herself. She sounds slightly hurt when she says, “What’s wrong with it?”
“Everything! It’s—the pattern! The sleeves! The collar! It looks like it’s made of cheap polyester.”
“It’s designer!” Lena pouts.
“Who designed it?”
“Well, I thought that blazer you wore last week was kind of hideous. I didn’t say anything at the time, but in the interest of honesty…”
Kara laughs, and Lena’s irritated expression melts away at her laughter, something in her eyes softening. It’s an expression Kara’s been seeing on her more often, in moments she catches Lena watching her when she thinks Kara isn’t paying attention.
She’s always paying attention to Lena.
“Maybe we should just agree to say that we both have questionable fashion taste sometimes and call it a day,” she says, downing the rest of her hot chocolate and placing the mug on the table.
Lena takes a dainty sip of her own still mostly filled mug. “Fine.”
There’s a long pause, and Kara taps her fingers on her pant leg and tries to think of a new conversation starter. She finally settles on. “In the interest of honesty… how are you holding up?”
Lena shrugs. “I’m okay, I suppose. I’m anxious about Lex—I know it’s only a matter of time before he’s back on our heels. Mostly, I’m just glad to have you back.” She looks over her mug at Kara. “I think that’s more a question I should be asking you, though.”
The look of intense concern in Lena’s eyes makes her feel hot, and Kara squirms slightly, pulling her collar away from her neck with a finger. She wants to say I’m fine, but honesty is the whole point of this exercise. “I’m… still not great. Being back there it… brought up a lot. Brought back a lot. I’m still having a really hard time with it all. It’s—it’s hard to talk about.”
“We don’t have to talk about it right now.”
“I want to talk about with you at some point. I just… don’t want it to ruin every conversation I have, you know? I want some things to be normal, still. I want to pretend things can be normal.”
“That makes sense,” Lena nods. She looks small when she says, “In the—in the interest of honesty, are you still mad?”
“At you?” Lena nods again, and Kara sighs, looking away. “It’s complicated, I guess. A little, maybe? I meant it when I said I forgave you, but there’s still part of me that’s a little angry. You did a lot of things that were… really bad, Lena.”
“I know.”
“Are you still mad at me?” Kara asks, and Lena’s shaking her head before she even finishes the question.
“No. No, I’m done being mad at you. I get it. I get why you hid your identity, and I wish you’d told me sooner, but I’m not angry anymore. I don’t have enough energy to be angry anymore. I’m happier if I don’t hate you.”
“Well, I’m glad for that.”
“I would have done anything to get you back, you know,” Lena says in a rush, words spilling out like she can’t stop them. “You say I did bad things before, but I would have watched the world burn if it meant I could have brought you back.” She looks down at her lap. “Who knows what I would have done if Alex hadn’t been there to stop me.”
“Lena.” Kara reaches over to take her hand. “You know I can’t possibly be mad at you for that.”
“No?”
“Of course not.”
“Okay,” Lena whispers. Kara watches her swirl around the dregs of her hot chocolate and takes a deep breath.
There’s still one more secret between them. One more secret that has the potential to ruin their friendship. Kara thinks they’re both aware of it, on some level. Aware of the way the weight of it shifts their every interaction. The others are aware of it too, have maybe known longer than Kara has. Alex certainly has. It was she who looked Kara in the eye when they were discussing this whole honestly policy and said, “You have to tell her this. You know you do.”
She can’t risk another secret in their relationship.
“Um, in the interest of honesty,” she starts, and finds she can’t quite meet Lena’s eyes. “I have to tell you—in all honesty, I would probably just keep it a secret, if I could, but I don’t think we should do secrets anymore, so I just need to tell you that I, um, have feelings for you.”
Lena straightens. “Feelings?” she says, her voice cautious.
Kara closes her eyes. Takes a breath. Steadies herself. Opens them again. “I’m in love with you,” she says. “Um, nothing has to change if you don’t want it to, but I need… I need you to know.”
“Oh,” breathes Lena. She opens her mouth, and it seem to take several moments for the words to catch up with her. “Well, in—in the interest of honesty, Kara, I’ve—I’ve been in love with you for years.” She gives a wry little half smile. “If we’re being honest.”
“What? You have?”
“Darling,” says Lena. “I’ve loved you since the day we met.”
“The day we met?”
“Why do you think it hurt me so badly when I found out who you were? Why do you think I was so deep in denial about it that I never figured it out myself? Do you really think you were that good at hiding it?”
“I mean, I thought—”
“The disguise. The hair. The glasses.” She puts down her mug, then reaches over and gently tugs the glasses from Kara’s face, folding the arms in and placing them on the table. She brushes a strand of hair behind Kara’s ear. “You mentioned Supergirl far too much as Kara and Kara far too much as Supergirl and one time you told me you flew to my office on a bus.”
“That’s—yeah, that’s fair, actually.”
“You’re in love with me? Honestly?” whispers Lena.
“I am. I really, truly am. Why do you think I refused to give up on you when everyone else was ready to?”
“I thought that just how you are. You don’t give up on anyone.”
“I try not to. But you, I could never bear to, even when it seemed like the only logical option to everyone else. Why do you think I waited so long to tell you in the first place? I was so scared to ruin things between us.”
“Why do you think I bought you an entire media empire?” Lena murmurs, and she’s so close, hand fisted in the collar of Kara’s shirt.
Kara giggles. “Why do you think I flew all over Europe to get you lunch?”
Lena laughs, and it’s such a relief to hear her laughter again, to let the conversation flow between them. There’s a bud of hope for the future that’s been sitting in Kara’s chest for years now, and under Lena’s adoring gaze, it starts to open.
“In all honesty,” Kara says, “I’d really like to kiss you right now.”
Lena slips a hand into her hair, runs her thumb over Kara’s cheekbone. “In all honesty?” She leans in, pressing their foreheads together. “I’d like that.”
There’s a fucking rose on the back of Lena’s neck.
The lighting in the tower bathroom is harsh, sure, and unflattering, yes, but the good thing about the fluorescent glare is that it provides decent enough illumination for any number of activities: patching up wounds, reading in relative silence, and, of course, investigating mysterious burning tattoos on the back of one’s neck.
And Lena is sure—certain, in fact—that the mark sitting right below her hairline, taunting pink against the paleness of her skin, is a rose, in the exact same swirling pattern as the love totem.
So that’s not ideal, really.
Lena knows what it means. Other than being a massive multiversal joke, the marking of a rose is symbolic of one thing—insuppressible, deeply-rooted, devastating love, the kind that’s been growing beneath the surface for longer than she really knows. The timing of the love totem’s imprint is no mystery, either. Not with the first prickle appearing after Kara’s heartfelt toast and the gentle clink of her glass against Lena’s, not with the burn setting in at her envy towards Kelly and Alex and the surfacing of her deeply repressed longing, definitely not with the way it went white-hot at the soft brush of those fingertips against her wrist.
As clever as it may think itself, the love totem’s smug imprint tells her nothing she doesn’t already know; Lena knew she loved Kara far before any totem got involved.
+
The love totem is destroyed, but its essence lives on. And that essence seems to have found a new home—the back of Lena's neck. Luckily, she has Kara to help her figure out who she's in love with. Kara, who seems prepared to guess that the subject of Lena's affection is just about anyone but herself.
(or, what if the love totem mark appeared on the back of Lena's neck instead of Esme's?)
In the darkest hour of the night, Kara is pulled from the depths of sleep by a melody.
The tune is familiar; it scratches some long-forgotten spot at the back of her brain, like a memory that she can’t quite assign shape or meaning to. It’s simple and soft, sweet and melancholy, seeping warmth into all the empty spaces of her body. She blinks at the ceiling, trying to pull together the fragments of memory that float to the surface at the sound. Fingers, smoothing back hair from her forehead. Lips, brushing against her cheek. Hazy purple nights, stars scattered across the sky in familiar formations.
She doesn’t realize she’s gotten out of bed until she’s drifting across the room, feet brushing against hardwood floor. At the window, she looks out over the city and up at the sky, trying to catch a glimpse of the stars.
The music has already faded back into non-existence. Kara isn’t sure it was ever really playing.
+
After Kara has revealed her identity to the world, combining Kara Danvers and Supergirl into one, bits of Krypton start to come back to her. This one in particular comes back in the form of a song her mother used to sing to her - a lullaby.
(or, Kara has a lot of trauma that was never properly explored and i believe sometimes she just deserves to be held very tenderly and given many forehead kisses)
i haven't done a ficlet in a while, so in honour of the upcoming dansen proposal, here's a silly little supercorp one to go with it!
+
“I’m officially declaring us done for the day,” says Lena, flopping onto the couch and sinking into the cushions with a contented sigh. “Oh, that’s nice. I don’t think I’ve ever walked up and down the stairs that many times in my life.”
“Well, we weren’t exactly planning for the elevator to be under maintenance today,” Kara says from the kitchen. The freezer door slams shut, and a drawer opens and closes with the jingle of cutlery. Kara’s footsteps approach across the hardwood. Her elbow nudges Lena’s leg. “Up, up.”
Lena lifts her legs so Kara can slide onto the couch beside her and then drapes them back over Kara’s lap, head titled back on the armrest. Kara shifts closer with a happy hum, and there’s the tell-tale sound of a container popping open. Lena looks up.
“Is that ice-cream?”
Kara grins, holding out a spoon. “Cookie dough.”
Lena groans, taking it from her hand and scootching up to a half-sitting position. “Have I ever told you that I love you?”
“Mm, a few times, I think. I’ve seen you cry about it once or twice.”
“Shut up,” Lena laughs. “Oh, I knew there was a reason that I moved in with you.”
It’s the latest big step in their relationship, Kara’s apartment becoming their apartment, and Lena still can’t quite believe it’s happening. No more having to stop at the penthouse before work or days waking up with the other side of the bed empty. No more spending half an hour debating about where they should spend the evening and ending up at Kara’s anyways. The boxes are still scattered around the loft, in various states of being unpacked, and they spent much of today finding new homes for Lena’s possessions and lugging things up the four flights of stairs. It still looks like an explosion went off, but they’ve made considerable progress since this morning.
“You know,” says Lena, digging her spoon into the ice-cream. “I didn’t realize how much stuff I owned until I was looking at all of it crammed into your living room. It always looked like a lot less in my penthouse.”
“That’s because your penthouse was massive,” Kara says, mouth full. “We could still have moved in there, you know.”
Lena shakes her head. Where Lena’s penthouse had been about as personal as the inside of an interior design magazine, Kara’s loft is broken in until all the edges are comfortable and worn, every inch well-loved. Her apartment is a half-finished painting by the window and a mug of forgotten coffee on the counter, shelves full of creased-spined books and photographs of friends and family taken over years of game nights and holiday dinners. It’s the old knit sweater Kara’s wearing, a soft shade of pink that makes the apples of her cheeks rosier, and her golden hair falling loose and rumpled over her shoulders. It’s home, in a way that no place that Lena has ever lived has been. The decision between Lena’s upscale penthouse and Kara’s loft was one of the easiest she’s ever made.
“I’ll fit what I can,” Lena decides, licking chocolate off the back of her spoon. “I can donate the things that I don’t need. I own too many things, anyways.”
“That sounds like a good plan. I have to say, I really like seeing all your clothes in the closet beside mine. And seeing the pictures you brought beside mine. And your favourite books on the shelves. It’s just…” Kara’s grinning, shaking her head like she can’t quite believe it. “This is our place now. Our home. Together.”
“Yeah, it is,” Lena says, smiling back, her heart expanding inside her chest. Three sizes, like the Grinch. “That’s pretty cool, huh?”
“So cool. I love doing things with you. Just like… going out, and anniversaries, and waking up next to you, and moving in together and… god, I can’t wait to marry you.”
Lena freezes, her spoon still in her mouth. “You can’t wait to what?” she says, around the metal.
In the echoing silence, water creaks through the pipes above them with a low hum. The light in the kitchen flickers. Kara stares into the ice-cream tub, eyes wide. “Uhh…”
“Was that—did you just propose to me, Kara? Was that a proposal?”
“Whoops,” Kara says, dropping her spoon into the tub. “Got, um. Got a little ahead of myself there.”
“What do you mean, got ahead of yourself?” Lena says, trying to mask the way her heart has started hammering against her ribcage.
“I’m, well.” Kara scratches her behind her ear, the tip of which has gone pink. “I forgot. That I haven’t actually, um, talked to you about that, and that it’s not—it’s not a sure thing, or anything? I just, well, I mean, I started thinking about it recently—well, a while ago, actually—and I’ve been kind of… planning and thinking about it like a lot, and I forgot for a second that I hadn’t actually asked you yet. Stupid of me to assume, really. I don’t even know if you’d say yes.”
“Why would I say anything other than yes?”
Kara’s head snaps towards her. “Wait, are you saying yes?”
“Are you proposing?”
“Yes—no, I don’t know. This wasn’t how I meant to do it. I’m not ready, I don’t have a ring or anything… I mean, I made Alex go look at them with me, but none of them were quite right and I hadn’t exactly figured out a budget so I don’t actually have one yet, and I haven’t planned where I’m going to do it, or how, and now I’m telling you all this, which I’m probably not supposed to, and shit.” Kara buries her face in her hands. “What a mess. I messed it all up.”
“Hey, hey,” Lena says, tugging at her wrist. “Don’t say that, darling. You didn’t mess anything up. I’ve… I’ve thought about it too, you know.”
Kara blinks up at her. “You have?”
“Mmhm.” Lena taps her spoon against her knee, suddenly having a hard time meeting Kara’s eyes. “I mean, I’ve thought for years that if I were to marry anyone, it would have to be you. Even before we were dating. I didn’t really want marriage, then, I didn’t like the idea of it, but if I was going to…”
“Really?” Kara says. Then she hesitates. “Wait, do you still not like the idea of it?”
“I don’t like… the old patriarchal idea of it. I don’t like the idea of having something like my father and Lillian had when I was growing up.” She looks over at Kara, who seems to have forgotten how to breathe, her knuckles white where they’re gripping the back of the couch. “I like the idea of being… linked with you like that. I like the idea of being able to wake up every morning to you as my wife.”
“Yeah,” Kara nods, breathless, reverent. “Yeah, me too. And the idea being able to call you my fiancée, in the meantime. Like you won’t just be my girlfriend, you’ll be my fiancée. When we go to get coffee, I can be all, I’d like a caramel Frappuccino with extra whipped cream and my fiancée would like a black coffee with no room, please.”
“I still don’t understand how you drink that.”
“I know you don’t, love. You like your coffee as bitter as your family.”
“What?”
“Wait, so do you want to wait until I can actually propose properly to be engaged?” says Kara. “How does this work? Are we already engaged if I know you’d say yes? Can we even just decide to be engaged?”
Lena shrugs. “I mean, if we want to.”
“That’s so weird. That you can just decide. You’d think that there’d be more ceremony or something in order to make it official. Like, I should have to give your mom a cow or something, to cement it.”
“You don’t need a dowry, Kara. It’s not the seventeen-hundreds. And I hardly think Lillian would appreciate a cow.”
“Right. No, I know that. I’m just. Freaking out a little bit.”
Lena reaches over and squeezes Kara’s knee. “I don’t need a big proposal, Kara. I think I prefer this, actually. It feels more… genuine.”
It’s a natural progression of her relationship with Kara that it should happen like this, in the comfortable warmth of Kara’s apartment, their apartment, over a tub of ice cream and surrounded by a mess of half-unpacked boxes. That instead of Kara planning some big, stiff proposal with everyone watching her get down on one knee like it’s some sort of performance, the words just sort of slip out naturally. Like marrying Lena, staying beside her for the rest of their lives, is their inevitable next step.
“Yeah, okay. Here.” Kara shifts into a crossed legged position on the couch, kicking Lena’s legs out from where they’ve been draped over hers until Lena mirrors her position. The ice cream tub rolls off her lap and onto the floor. She takes both of Lena’s hands in hers, squeezing lightly, and looks at Lena with those deep, serious blue eyes that stole Lena’s heart five years ago.
“Lena Luthor.”
Lena matches her solemn expression. “Yes.”
“I’ve been in love with you for almost as long as I’ve known you and I don’t plan on stopping any time soon. And I’d really, really like it if you were my fiancée. And then my wife. So, um. Will you marry me?”
And Lena smiles so widely she thinks her face will split, so light that she’s in danger of floating away. “Yes, I will.”
Kara squeals, wiggling in her seat. “Yes! Yes, okay, oh, I’m going to kiss you now, can I kiss you now? I’d really like to kiss you now.”
“Please do," Lena says, her laughter getting lost somewhere between their lips when Kara lurches forwards.
And Kara’s lips, Kara’s smile against her mouth and her hand tangling into Lena’s hair and her body pushing Lena’s further down onto the couch, are home as much as the apartment that they now share. Kara tastes of cookie-dough ice-cream and laughter and the end of a long day and home, home, home, always home.
