Hi Cap! Happy pride!! Could you write a superreigncorp (background sanvers because yes) thing where Kara has always refused to touch whenever she could cause she was scared that she would hurt them and Sam and Lena find out and help her
Alex has known this about Kara since Alex was sixteen years old: Kara hugged her, easy and casual.
She broke two of Alex’s ribs.
She’d always been careful, before then. Quick to recoil if someone went for a handshake; even quicker if someone went for a hug.
Which people rarely did, when they were younger.
Because Kara was the freak who talked about never having seen birds before, who saved that girl but broke her sister’s arm, whose sister always had odd bruises she tried to hide since the new girl moved in; the new girl who sometimes said the most brilliant things any of them had ever heard and sometimes sounded like she’d grown up under a rock.
Not under a rock, she used to murmur to Jeremiah when she would tell him what the other kids were saying, just on a different rock.
And that different rock – or, more specifically, her different sun – made her much different, now. More careful, now.
An exuberant child, Kara had to restrain herself, always.
Too much happiness would – and had done – land her sister in the hospital.
Too much knowledge would expose her.
Too much anger would destroy… well, everything.
She was learning that last one especially, now. With Astra and Non so close in the past, with Myriad and with Cadmus and with… Rao… everything.
She kept losing, everything.
Not when she could avoid it.
Restraint was second nature to her, now. Restraint was how she lived.
Because when Cat Grant grabbed onto her like she was the only thing holding her up – and, for a moment, she was – she couldn’t hug her back like she wanted, because only when she was fighting Alex in Kryptonite lights could she really let herself go.
And when she shook Maggie Sawyer’s hand for the first time, and an odd thrill ran through her body because this woman, clearly, was someone to her sister (and she had the monopoly on hurting her sister), she terrified herself; because what if she grasped too hard?
And when she first kissed Lena Luthor, all she could think about was not breaking her nose, not hurting her, not getting enthusiastic, getting excited, and tasting Lena’s blood on her tongue.
“You’re not going to hurt me,” Lena had murmured, because she knew a little something about restraint.
“You can’t be sure of that,” Kara had pressed their foreheads together, gentle, gentle, gentle.
“Okay, I can’t,” Lena conceded. “But I can promise I won’t blame you if you do.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“Well then, we’ll find something that is.”
Because Kryptonite hurt her; and Lena did not want to kiss her new girlfriend - do so much more with her new girlfriend - while Kara was actively being hurt, while she was in the equivalent of a biological prison.
She started working on red sun lamps immediately.
She started lacing their low-level, human-safe approved, radiation into the fabric of her clothes.
All the lights in her apartment, in her office, had the option to glow a soft red.
And when Sam joined their relationship, she reveled in watching Kara not need them.
Because she couldn’t hurt Sam accidentally.
Because Sam, too, had the same restraint problem as Kara.
“It doesn’t make you monsters,” Lena whispered one night. One night when Kara had forgotten to switch on the red sun lamp and gotten excited; one night when Sam had forgotten to switch on the red sun lamp and gotten overenthusiastic.
“Are you sure?” Kara asked, and Sam exchanged a glance with Lena.
“Yes,” she promised, tilting Kara’s chin up with a measured finger. “Do you think it makes me a monster, Kara?”
She shook her head wordlessly, because no, no, Sam could never be a monster. Even when her body tried to make her one.
“Then what makes you one?” Lena provided, and Kara sighed, knowing the only logical answer was an emotional one.
“Because only monsters can’t touch the people they love without restraint.”
Lena scoffed. “I restrain myself when I’m holding Alex and Maggie’s infant.” She crawled into Kara’s lap, and kissed Sam’s lips as she brought her closer to them both. “You think I don’t want to just smoosh them and tell them how adorable and perfect they are? Or Gertrude. Or any dog I see, really. You think I don’t have to restrain myself to not hurt those small creatures?”
“But you’re not small creatures. You’re not babies, and you’re not puppies.”
“If only we had that life,” Sam sighed, and Kara couldn’t help but smile. A little. Sam kissed her, and she smiled a little more.
“Everyone has to have restraint sometimes, Kara. I’m not saying it’s not horrific for you. I’m not saying it’s not unique. But I’m saying it doesn’t make you a monster. And I’m saying I love you. Both of you.”
“That’s gay,” Sam whispered, and this time, Kara laughed full-out.
“I love you, too,” she promised, and she needed absolutely no restraint for that.
