Chapter Text
"Excuse me. Would you mind scooting one over?" She hears while she's trying to enjoy her fifteen-minute break between classes. Catra fights the urge to groan at the interruption.
"Ha, no I'm literally sitting here, you take the next seat over." She shuts that shit down. This is her assigned seat for her 9 AM class, she doesn't need to move seats every day for the rest of the semester because some vapid sorority girl wants to sit with her friends—
Oh.
Catra looks up and she does find a blonde, but not the kind she's expecting. This blonde is tall, her muscles obvious even though she's covered up in one of the school's varsity sweats. Softball. The girl has an undercut she nervously runs her hands through as she eyes Catra.
If the girl's softball gear and undercut didn't give her away as some kind of sapphic, the way she stared at Catra sure fucking did. She waits for the girl to stop eyefucking her. It takes at least three minutes. She smirks, luxuriating under the blonde's attention.
Finally, blondie seems to realize that staring at someone because you think they're hot isn't exactly polite. Not that Catra minds in the slightest.
She rambles on with a blush on her face. "This is my favorite seat. I sit here every semester when I have an auditorium class. In every class since freshman year. And—"
"What're you now?" She tries to keep the question casual, not wanting to scare her off.
She looks up and the girl lights up. She has such pretty eyes, Catra's sure she'd never seen a blue like this. "Finishing up sophomore year—anyways, I think it'll be best if—"
"What's your name?" She asks, leaning forward a bit as she smiles at the girl.
"Adora," of course she has a name as precious as she is, "now will you please—"
"No blondie." She says, giving her a chance to drop this lame chair excuse and just talk to Catra.
"What—then why did you let me work up to asking again?" Adora tilts her head and grips her notebook looking like a disappointed puppy.
Catra has to hold back a laugh. Does everything about this girl have to be so cute?
"Because I wanted to see what you'd say for it." She says shooting her a flirty smile.
Then, something amazing happens. Adora's eyes darken and her expression falls out of that fake politeness to something more serious. The sweet bumbling puppy just got replaced with a damn valkyrie.
Catra takes a deep breath hoping the blonde won't notice.
"I—"the bell rings and the girl stares angrily at Catra with passion that makes her knees wobble.
"You aren't getting your seat today princess. But it was fun distracting you." She can't help but taunt.
As expected, those stormy blue eyes are trained on her, and she can't help but stare at how Adora bites her lip. God she's so fucking gay.
She feels Adora sit right behind her, could hear her huff of annoyance and all but feel her eyes on Catra.
This was going to be a fun class.
"What are you doing here?" She hears the outrage in Adora's voice before she sees her. She looks up and she's just as angry as she was on the first day, which hadn't happened in a while.
"Is the princess upset that she can't get what she wants?" She asks to rile her up. Her jaw clenched and you could see the muscles jumping in her forearms. She has really strong-looking forearms it's—
"Listen you-" she takes a step forward absolutely towering over Catras seated form. It shouldn't be this hot that she's about to get beat up by a softball player but then again, Catra's never been the traditional sort.
"Catra" she offers her name. If she's going to die she wants the last thing she hears to be her name on this woman's lips.
"Catra" Adora spits out her name her eyes smoldering at Catra and fuck if it doesn't do things to her. "I just want to sit in my seat I don't know why that's so difficult for you."
It takes a moment to break through the fog of horny to catch up to what the blonde is talking about.
She snorts. "It's not your seat." She points out. "There aren't assigned seats."
Adora huffs and actually tamps her foot down. Catra can't pull back her smile.
"But how did you beat me! I came early just to make sure—" She cuts herself off with a horrified look eyes darting down to Catra.
"Oh princess you didn't know?" She asks, eyeing the blonde. She can't help but notice that Adora's wearing shorts that barely cover her thighs and its giving Catra heart palpitations. "I'm in the class right before this one too. So you're never going to get here before me."
Adora groans audibly smacking her own forehead as if the thought should have occurred to her. "You're evil." She says flatly with a pout.
Catra giggles as the gorgeous blonde sulks. She goes to sit at her seat and Catra just smiles dumbly at her notebook, hoping that maybe the blonde would ask her out soon instead of whatever game this was with the seat.
Every week she learns more about Adora. The girl is a verifiable athletic God if the school newsletter is to be believed—and after staring at the girl two times a week for over a month Catra believes it—she's unfailingly kind, always the first to lend out a pencil or paper to any careless student who simply couldn't be bothered to put in the effort, and she's so smart the professor always calls on her when the questions are simply too hard for everyone else.
Catra sighs a little as she thinks about her. She's such a dope, for all she knows, this flirtatious little game is just how Adora is and she has seventeen girls coming to softballs games hoping to get wife-d up by her. She still hasn't made a move and Catra's starting to feel a little impatient.
Almost as if she's called her with her mind, Adora appears in front of her, a beverage and chocolate croissant in hand. She looks nervous and Catra's sure that if she had use of both hands she'd be rubbing the back of her neck by now.
"Oh hey Adora." She tries to be casual not letting on that she was literally just daydreaming about the blonde.
"I brought you something." She says haltingly with a slight smile.
"Did you now?" She raises an eyebrow. She wasn't expecting this at all.
"Yes." She nods, placing a chocolate croissant and a hot chocolate in front of her.
"Why this? Why not a coffee." She's glad it's not but that's the go-to for any college student. Adora looks caught, her eyes widening as she crosses her arms, the muscles bulging under the tension.
"I overheard you say you don't like coffee." She stammers out, a blush gracing her cheeks.
Holy shit Adora pays attention to her. She tries to keep it together. "Thanks." She tries the croissant and it's amazing. Of course it is, the hottest girl on the planet brought it to her. Adora continues to stand there, shuffling from side to side. "Anything else princess?"
Adora smiles awkwardly and her gaze flickers to the seat and back up to Catra. She almost burst out laughing.
"Ooohh you were hoping I'd give you your precious seat right?" She teases, it seems they weren't going to be dropping the seat pretext just yet.
"No! I wasn't." She denies it, blushing even harder. "I was just trying to be nice."
Yeah be nice and hopefully get into Catra's pants. Which she was all for.
"Yeah yeah I believe that." She rolls her eyes and sends her a smug smile. "I can't be bribed princess, you have to try harder than that."
She should just ask Catra out point blank. It's not that hard!
She can't quite suppress a chuckle when Adora sputters out and slams her books out of nervousness. Yeah, she's still got it.
Catra's a fucking moron. She sees that now. After over two weeks of Adora steadfastly avoiding her, she was driving herself crazy thinking she did something wrong and she finally caved and talked to Scorpia.
Scorpia looked at her as if she was a basket case and said a sentence that now haunts Catra's every dream:
Cat, did you consider that maybe this girl just really wants the chair?
Catra was bulldozed by the realization, that maybe what she saw as a game that they were both in on was just her being an unmitigated ass to Adora.
She's now sure that the blonde wants nothing to do with her, but she can't stand thinking that Adora might be upset with her. She really is just the loveliest person Catra's ever met and she could kick herself when she realizes how badly she misread everything.
So, she's going to give her a peace offering in the form of a bagel and coffee—she tries to avoid thinking of the damn near pornographic sounds Adora made the two times she brought the snack to class—and quietly move to the back of the class where she can brood to her heart's content.
When Adora walks in she pauses, noticing that Catra isn't sitting in the stupid chair that apparently is the only reason she even noticed Catra.
She takes a deep breath, ready to get this over with."Hey Adora. How are you?"
"Um I'm... good?" She sounds confused, which is fair Catra supposes. Of course she's wearing a crop top today because Catra can't have nice things. She valiantly keeps her eyes up on Adora's uncertain expression. "Catra, what's going on?"
"I realize that maybe I was a little hard on you." That's the least of it, but it's the most she can say without checking up. "So this is me apologizing." She gestures for Adora to sit. The blonde looks at the seat and the items atop it with a strange expression on her face. "I thought that things between us were fine and then you stopped talking to me. I talked to a friend that pointed out that maybe you didn't appreciate my flirting style so I'll just go sit in the back now."
She can't stand to see whatever expression is on Adora's face. She apologized and now she turns on her heel ready to just hide from this girl for the next two years of college but something stops her.
It's Adora's hand. It's big and calloused and rough, better than any one of Catra's many fantasies about the blonde. She tugs gently until Catra has no choice but to face her.
"Wait. That was—you were flirting with me?" Adora says, her blue eyes wide as she stares down into Catra's soul. She can't help but feel on the spot under that gorgeous stare.
Adora squeezes her hand reassuringly. "I didn't realize." She admits quietly.
The confirmation that her flirting was so bad the object of her desires had no idea strings just a tad. "Well, that's kind of awkward."
"What were you hoping would happen? Like besides teasing me mercilessly?" Adora grins broadly as she pulls up to her full height, making Catra feel like a small little delicate flower, which is not her natural state of being.
The blonde's presence made her lose any semblance of a filter. "I don't know maybe you'd threaten to sit in my lap to shove me out of the chair and I'd just let you and it would somehow work out?" She throws out one of the many implausible ways she hoped their flirting would escalate. "To be honest I didn't think much farther than how hot you are when you're mad."
Adora seems surprised for a moment until an unfairly sexy smirk blooms across her face and punches Catra in the gut. "You think I'm hot?"
That's what Adora got from all that? Catra tries to collect herself under Adora's intensely pleased stare. She catches sight of the clock and that gives her an out.
"Yeah. So um, class is about to start. I better go." She edges backward but Adora is still holding her hand.
"I don't want the seat anymore." She whispers and holy fuck she must have at least 37 girls waiting in the wings at every softball game because how can someone do that with just their eyes?
Catra finally catches on to what Adora says and she shakes her head vigorously. "No? You've been badgering me about that thing for ages!"
Adora takes a step closer, her eyes cautiously hopeful as she leans down to speak quietly into Catra's ear. "I'm thinking, maybe you stay in your seat and I sit next to you?"
The offer is soft and tender and someone might need to scrape Catra off the ground before this is all over.
"I'd love that princess." As they sit down, Catra pushes her leg against Adora. Adora nudges her back and they share a secret smile.
Catra's not going to mess this up again.