The first.
It’s an accident. Kara goes by Lena’s apartment after Lena saved the city and Lillian had been driven away in the back of a police car. Only to see if she’s okay. Kara just wants to be a friend, to stop by and make sure that darkened look in the back of Lena’s eye is gone. She’d seen it as Supergirl, but they’d been surrounded by people and there’d been no way to ask her, there among the flashing lights and drama. Kara hadn’t been lying, when she’d let slip to Lena that she knows what it’s like to feel let down by your parents. She knows what it means, that look. That pain. It's sitting in her chest, heavy like rocks, right now. So she gets it.
Maybe not entirely, but she understands in some form.
In many ways, Kara’s father and Lena’s mother teamed up to destroy lives.
It’s with that hollow thought that Kara knocks on Lena’s door.
Lena opens it with a set jaw and eyes like shards of bottle glass. A green that had been lost at sea. Alex had taken Kara once, to the beach to pick up sea glass and that color is all Kara sees, now.
“Lena." Kara feels oddly formal. A feeling that doesn't sit well anymore. Not with Lena. "Thanks for telling your security to let me through.”
She’d been unsure if Lena would, with the pushing questions that day. With everything Lena’s been through.
Lena nods. “Is everything alright?”
She stands aside and Kara walks in, adjusting her glasses and barely taking in the wide space, the modern design. All clean lines and white furniture. So Lena.
She turns. “I actually wanted to ask you that.”
There’s a quickening in Lena’s heart rate, a staccato. But nothing else changes. That jaw is still a firm line, those eyes like glass smoothed by the sea. “I’m fine.”
“I know what happened.” Kara's never been good at holding words, trapping them inside her chest. They always seem to overflow.
“So soon?”
“Reporter. Plus, well, Supergirl told me.”
Lena’s head cocks and finally, she smiles. “Of course she did.”
Kara doesn’t understand the look in her eye, then. The way Lena steps forward. The cock of her head. Suddenly, she’s a foot away. And still that color is there. One to get lost in. Here, Kara can tell that smile is lacking, not the one she knows so well, and it’s faded as fast as it appeared, leaving Kara grasping to figure out how to bring it back.
“Awfully convenient,” Lena says. Almost whispers. It’s soft and Lena’s looking at her lips. Then back at her eyes.
Kara swallows. “Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I never really answered in the first place, Kara.”
And then Lena’s even closer, barely a gap between them. A hand slides behind Kara’s neck and warm breath washes over her lips. Those lips just graze her own, nothing to be called a kiss and Kara can’t move. All the air has disappeared. She'd want it back, but there's something addictive in this wanting.
“Tell me to stop.” It's whispered over her mouth and Kara breathes the words in. Absorbs them.
And she shakes her head, barely discernible. “I can’t.”
Lena closes that gap in a second that drags forever. Her lips are full of need, of a craving for distraction. Her fingers are sharp and hard and grasping. Kara isn’t used to this, to feeling like someone wants to devour her, but she finds she likes it. Wants to get lost in it.
Her back hits a wall with a thud and her fingers tug at buttons, popping Lena’s shirt open until they scatter on the floor. Warm skin and a wet tongue and teeth at her pulse point.
Kara had no idea she liked to be bitten there, hard. That she liked the feeling of nails against the skin of her back. That hard cement behind her back could feel like this. Like falling apart and being pushed back together.
But she does.
Lena’s thigh is between her legs, her hips are rocking and Kara’s hands pull her closer. She thinks she may just come undone there against Lena's thigh, against the wall in her living room and she doesn’t even care.
Yet then Lena is tugging her away, and there’s a bed and clothes are left scattered and Kara’s relieved she didn’t wear her suit, and wonders, before thought disappears, if it was because she’d been hoping for something like this.
The entire thing is kind of an accident and Lena is a force of fury and emotion. Of desperation and tugging and gasping sobs as she comes.
Kara leaves her underwear in the rush to get to work on time in the morning, Lena sprawled on her stomach and face down in her pillow. Sleeping, breathing even and steady. Kara hovers in the doorway, unsure of protocol. She’s never done this before.
So she leaves.
The Second
Of course Snapper tells Kara to go and interview Lena post the events with her mother. Kara is all trembling fingers when she arrives, her heart in her throat.
Lena is all coolness and calm across the desk, but the rhythm of her racing heart is still there, a giveaway. Despite that, every question is answered meticulously, easily. Without a single stutter or expression to give anything away. It's probably this that makes Kara break.
“I’m sorry.” The words fall from Kara’s lips before she can stop them, mid-interview. “I shouldn’t have just left this morning.”
Lena leans back in her chair and crosses her legs. “You shouldn’t have?”
“No.” Kara shakes her head, emphatic. “I panicked.”
And Lena is grinning, the one that’s made Kara’s stomach flip since they first met. It’s real and genuine and doesn’t leave Kara unsure, like the one last night. It comes from nowhere, but that's what makes it better.
“Why did you panic, Kara?”
“I don’t normally do that.” Lena is standing up, her fingers gliding over her desk as she walks around it. Kara’s head is dizzy, and she realises she wants to repeat the night before. And now. Her fingers itch to touch Lena again, to run over the softness of her back. Lena pauses right next to her, and Kara looks up.
“Do what?”
“Sleep with people out of nowhere. We normally, have lead up, first. Not that there's anything wrong with doing that. I just, didn't know the-the rules.”
Lena’s eyes are bright. Kara would swear she's amused. “Do you regret it?”
“No,” Kara breathes the word out and when Lena kisses her again, hands threading into her hair, Kara wants to stay like that and never leave.
The kiss is softer, the desperation quelled. When Lena straddles her, sinks into her lap, Kara tugs her closer, her hands lost on her hips. In the delicious feeling of the way she rolls them. Lena’s fingers tug at Kara’s shirt, the button, and Kara is lost in that kiss, the tongue gliding over her own and then Lena is frozen and Kara’s eyes go wide.
They stare at each, all pupils and panting breath, Lena’s fingers stilled over Kara’s suit, at the crest exposed to the undeniable light flooding the room.
Kara opens her mouth. Then closes it. She has no idea what to say. She’s never this careless.
Lena's fingers move then, tracing the curve of the top of the 'S'.
With a slow curving of her lips, Lena smiles. “Did you really think I didn’t know?”
“What?”
“Kara. You’re a terrible liar.” And Kara wants to be indignant, but Lena is kissing her again. She pulls away and Kara actually whines, trying to chase her lips. “Come over tonight.”
And Lena walks back to her seat and leaves Kara a mess, her hair rumpled and cheeks burning. And, damn her, she looks completely put together.
So Kara goes there that night and in the morning, Lena makes her coffee with nothing but Kara’s cape wrapped around her, it so short on her thighs all Kara can do is run her hands up them right there in the kitchen and lift Lena onto the counter. She peels away the layers, her lips chasing her fingertips and she's almost late for work, but she can't even care with the memory of that red slashing over the cream of Lena's thigh and her hands tugging at Kara's hair.
Kara leaves the cape there, because it looks too good on Lena not to, and she has enough spares.
The Fifth Time
Lena’s fingers are insistent, three of them, thrusting, and when Kara groans and tells her not to stop, Lena laughs into her neck.
“Like I would,” she pants into Kara’s ear, and those words drag a groan out of Kara, from deep in her chest.
Her fingers dig into the mattress, her knees into the floor. Lena’s weight is over her back and all Kara wants is more. More and for this to never end.
Then her phone rings. Loudly. Alex’s DEO theme.
Lena falters.
“No.” Kara almost sobs it.
“Isn’t that your sister?”
“No.”
She’s lying.
“It is.” Lena stops altogether and Kara groans, with desperation, her forehead pressing into the mattress. Lena kisses the back of her neck, teeth grazing and making Kara shudder. She's so close. “They may need Supergirl.”
And of course they do. Alex would never call in the middle of the night otherwise. After an awkward conversation with Alex that only Kara knows is awkward, she forces herself up. On wobbly legs Kara uses her super speed to dash around the room, Lena’s apartment, collecting the pieces of her suit she’d flown in here with.
“I can’t find my other boot.” She’s feeling urgent now, she needs to be there. There’s not much time.
“Hm?” Lena is in the middle of the bed without a sheet or a shred of clothing and Kara stops in the doorway. She looks incredible.
“What?” Kara asks.
“You said something.”
“Oh." Kara swallows. "Right. My boot?”
“Under the bed?” Kara uses her x-ray vision and shakes her head. Lena falls back into the pillows. “I have no idea.”
“You’re not being helpful.”
She flashes a grin. “I’m aware.”
And that’s how Supergirl is spotted in trainers, bringing down an alien that fell through a portal and seems intent on destroying the city. It's also how Lena acquired her boots.
The Twenty Second Time
They argue about Lena’s alien detection software and Kara storms out in a rage, all flushed cheeks and clenched fists. Of course, she leaves her suit because she isn’t thinking and has to go home to get another. They'd been too busy snapping at each other on opposite sides of the bed, Kara's fingers trembling as she tugged on her sweater. At work she tries to pretend she isn’t infuriated and at three o´clock she stands at the TV in James’ office, ready to watch Lena announce the technology to the world. Her jaw is set so tight that James is throwing her weird looks and Kara tries to take a breath. It doesn't help. And she hates that she can understand where Lena's coming from, no matter how vehemently Kara is opposed.
And Lena announces the tech. She stares into the camera and in the same breath, deems it destroyed. The plans shredded. The prototypes gone.
Everyone starts talking, voices rising and falling and all Kara can do is stare. Lena’s gaze is steady and Kara thinks she may well be staring straight at Kara.
She flies into Lena’s apartment that night and Lena is on the sofa, waiting for her.
Neither apologises. But Lena tugs her down on top of her, her legs wrapping around Kara’s waist, and Kara can feel the apology in her kiss, in the way Lena arches into her and grasps her as close as possible. There's no fury in their touches, but there's something there, something in the way they gasp into each other's mouths, fingers fast in each others pants.
When Lena makes them coffee in the morning, she’s only in the shirt of Kara’s suit and Kara has her against the fridge so fast Lena’s gasping in seconds and Kara thinks the only thing Lena should ever wear is that shirt. Nothing else. Her fingers graze over the smoothness of her ass, between her legs and Kara doesn't even try to stop the way Lena cries out.
The Forty Sixth Time
They spend the weekend in Lena’s apartment. It’s a rare time with no emergencies and no meetings and no fires that need putting out.
Whatever they’re doing together is complicated and full of issues. Alex finally knows and doesn’t really get it but tries to pretend she likes Lena. Though Kara can see the doubt in her eyes. Kara just enjoys what she has, because with her life it’s hard to have anything that resembles normal. Their lives are chaotic and busy and neither seem great at relationships.
But somehow it works, because they both just let each other be.
The Friday night Lena falls asleep on top of Kara mid-movie and Kara doesn’t dare move, just runs her fingers through Lena’s hair and falls asleep herself.
The Saturday Kara cooks and Lena tries to pretend it tastes edible, then orders them something to be delivered. It’s Saturday night when they realise Kara needs something more than the suit that lives at Lena’s.
“Just bring a bag. Your suit lives here, anyway.”
So Kara flies home and is back in ten minutes with a bag. Lena’s in the shower, so Kara slips in, the steam billowing around them and Lena smiling like that's what she's been waiting for. With her lips pressed to the wet warmth of Lena’s breast, Kara grins at how ridiculous it is that she now has a toothbrush in Lena Luthor’s apartment.
Seriously, the thought is just ridiculous.
The Sixty Fourth Time
Kara hates being pulled from sleep. Lena is naked and warm and their legs are entwined, their hair spilling out over the same pillow.
Her phone is still ringing.
Lena wakes to Kara scrambling around the room again. It’s not an uncommon occurrence, one she sometimes sleeps through. She rolls over onto her stomach, sprawling out over the bed like she does every time, pulling a pillow into her side. “Who needs saving?”
Her voice is hoarse with sleep, rough, a sound like rich warm toffee.
“My apartment. There’s been a fire.”
Lena sits up. “What?”
“It’s out.” Kara hops on the spot, pulling her shoe on finally. “But I have to go check. Not as Supergirl, but as me.”
“Want me to come?”
Kara pauses in the dark of the room. Lena is already getting up. Kara nods, and has no idea why she’s grinning. “Yeah. That’d be good.”
They arrive and stand in the living room in a slight haze of smoke. Lena is blinking around sleepily, her hands in her coat pocket and looking like she stepped out of a magazine even though she got dressed in two minutes. Kara still doesn't understand how she can get her hair to look like that so fast. There’s a small bruise on her neck and Kara tucks her grin away.
The firemen shrugs at her. “A small electrical fire. It’s lucky you weren’t home though. When was the last time you stayed here? Something like that should have shown signs. Sparks. Flickers and the like.”
“Uh…” Kara stares at him.
She has no idea.
Lena looks at her. “Last week?”
Kara shakes her head. Lena bites her lip, a smile there she’s trying to push down.
Someone snorts behind them and Kara turns. Alex is walking in, her arms crossed and Kara already regrets calling her. “Oh please. You don’t even live here anymore.”
“I–yes, I do.”
“Really?” Alex raises her eyebrows.
Kara looks to Lena for help, but Lena’s eyes are wide. They stare at each other.
Finally, Lena winces. “Kara? Are we living together?”