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“Sorry!” Lena grins and looks up as the whirlwind that is Kara Danvers collapses into the chair across from her. “Sorry, sorry–I got held up at work, Snapper was having a mood , I think someone spat in his wheaties—”
“Kara, it’s fine ,” Lena interrupts, laughing. “I was running late too, actually, I only beat you here by a minute.” That’s a complete and utter lie, and a passing barista hears it and raises an eyebrow, but Kara beams at her with relief.
“I’m glad I didn’t keep you waiting, I’m so glad to see you! It’s been ages.”
“It’s been four days; I saw you on Saturday,” Lena points out, and pushes a caramel pumpkin latte across the table. This isn’t their usual coffee place, but Lena is still fairly certain she picked the right drink for Kara Danvers off their menu. She looked for the items with the highest sugar content and went from there.
“Four days is a long time,” Kara insists. “Anyways, it’s been a very long four days - I’ve been looking forward to this coffee and your face since I woke up this morning, let me tell you. It’s been all that’s keeping me sane.”
Actually, Kara does look more than just flustered, Lena realizes as she watches her friend take a long pull from her coffee mug. She looks downright disheveled - Lena’s used to seeing Kara with windblown hair, but now it’s got a slightly unwashed sheen to it, and her clothing is wrinkled. On top of that, she looks tired. Lena’s not about to push anybody to reveal secrets before they’re ready, but she hadn’t been entirely sure that Kara could get tired.
“Are you alright?” she asks, concerned. “What’s happened?”
“Oh, nothing bad,” Kara is quick to reassure her, waving her arms in emphasis. The coffee sloshes alarmingly, drops of it falling onto her pastel blouse. “Oh shoot. It’s nothing, really, it’s just that a pipe burst in my apartment on Sunday so I’m temporarily homeless.” She dips a napkin into her glass of water and dabs it uselessly against the small brown stains below her collar.
“Kara, that’s definitely not nothing!” Lena objects, concerned. “That’s awful—is your stuff alright?”
“The living room is,” Kara says, and some of the cheer wavers on her face for a moment as she adds, “the bedroom not so much. My clothing smelled like nothing I would ever want to put around my body again. And now I think this shirt is ruined by coffee, so I am officially out of shirts!” She gives Lena a very earnest look. “As my best friend, would you bail me out if I was arrested for wandering through National City topless?”
“As your best friend, I would head the movement to change National City’s outdated sexist laws and make it legal for you to wander around topless,” Lena promises solemnly, and Kara beams at her.
“My hero,” she says, and Lena firmly pushes away every thought of Kara topless, because there’s something that feels evil about lusting after a person who looks at you with the puppy-like adoration that Kara is directing her way.
“Are you staying with your sister?” she asks, changing the subject, and Kara grimaces.
“I did for a night or two, but she and Maggie have just worked things out. I don’t want to be in the way.”
“I’m sure Alex doesn’t see you as in the way!” Lena objects. From what she’s seen of the Danvers sisters, they try to die for each other on a bi-weekly basis, so it’s hard to believe that Alex is put out by the sacrifice of her living room.
“No, she definitely doesn't,” Kara agrees. “She does not consider me in her way at all—she and Maggie have been doing everything they would be doing if I wasn’t in the living room. Loudly. Constantly. I’m not staying there anymore. I’ve been crashing on Winn’s couch, and James says I can stay with him tomorrow.”
“So you’re couch-surfing with no clothing,” Lena summarizes. “OK, well—that’s silly. You have a best friend who not only will fight the good fight to release you from prison, but who also has a spare room. Just stay with me until your apartment is fixed!”
It’s a mistake, she knows. She does not need Kara Danvers threatening to wander around topless and living in her apartment , it is going to end badly.
But Kara is smiling at her with dopey awe, like she can’t believe someone as wonderful as Lena exists in the world. “Really?” she asks, and Lena promises to have someone drop off her spare keys at CatCo that afternoon.
**
“Ahem, Ms Luthor…” Lena’s eyes flutter open and her driver swims into focus, looking as politely uncomfortable as he always does when he has to wake her up. “We’ve arrived…”
“Thanks, Damien,” she mutters, and pulls herself out of the car, rapidly readjusting to wakefulness as she drags herself into her building and presses the button for the elevator. It’s only just after 9pm, and she wouldn’t normally be this tired, but she’s been overseeing a company merger, and she’s pulled a few late nights. It’s been hours since coffee with Kara. She remembers to expect company in her apartment around the same time that she opens her door and is smacked in the face by the sharp smell of fried food and spices.
“Lena, you’re home!” Kara comes bounding out of her kitchen. “How was the rest of your day?”
“It was nice,” Lena says, which isn’t entirely true, but it’s close enough. Her day is nice now , with Kara greeting her. “Did you settle in OK?”
“Yeah, I took you at your word and took over your guest room,” Kara says. “And took a shower. Did you know your guest room has its own bathroom? That’s amazing. It has been four days since I used a shower that didn’t have anyone else’s hair in it.”
Lena laughs, hangs her keys, puts down her things. Her apartment has always been a little bit cool - deep browns and blues and pale white. She likes minimalist decor; she likes to come into a room and feel like she has space in it.
It’s amazing how Kara’s presence is all it takes to warm the entire apartment.
“I’m glad it’s to your liking,” she says, and is struck with immediate embarrassment at her own stiltedness and how it compares to Kara’s easy honest enthusiasm.
“Of course it is. The best part of staying here is that I get my best friend as a roommate!” Kara declares. “I’d put up with all the shower hairballs you could throw at me. And—” she bounces a little, clearly excited for whatever she’s about to say - “in my quest to be the perfect roommate, I bought us dinner! From the best Chinese place in National City, so I hope you’re hungry.”
“Starved,” Lena tells her honestly. “Just let me get changed and we can eat.”
Lena hates C hinese food—or at least, she hates the fried Americanized version that she’s almost positive Kara has ordered in abundance.
She also knows that she’s about to go out there and choke down a plate of it and smile like it’s the best thing she’s ever eaten, and then wake up early to run an extra mile at the gym. It’s funny how often she lies to Kara about little things. It’s not that she’s trying to hide—she’s honest with Kara about everything important, in a way that she is rarely open with anybody else.
It’s just that the little things like Chinese food make Kara so happy. And if there’s one thing Lena feels sure of, it’s that the Kara Danvers of the world deserve happiness at every opportunity.
When she enters her kitchen, Kara is trying to surreptitiously sneak dumplings into her mouth. She freezes when she sees Lena, and then offers her a closed mouth smile.
“V nvgl sgn vlp,” she says, and then, Lena is almost sure, swallows the entire dumpling whole. It should be revolting.
“I’ve never seen you dressed casually before - you look gorgeous,” she repeats, and then turns a little pink and hurriedly adds, “I mean, you know—you look gorgeous all the time, that’s just how you look. But I was just...surprised, by the tanktop. I mean, not that you don’t look normal, it’s a very appropriate tank top, you could wear it to work if you wanted.”
Lena looks down at herself. She’s in a tank top and sweatpants because she’ll be shocked if she can stay awake another full hour, but there’s nothing about them that should induce this I’ve-got-no-superpowers level of rambling.
“I probably won’t wear my pajamas to work, but I appreciate that I’d have your support if I wanted to,” she says mildly, and decides not to push it. “How do you think wine would go with dinner? I’m not sure it matches Chinese food.”
“We can eat mismatched things,” Kara proclaims. She spoons sesame chicken and fried rice and pork dumplings onto plates while Lena pulls out a bottle of red wine and pours it into glasses, and they settle together on Lena’s brown leather couch, above a white modernist carpet that will never recover from the soy sauce that Kara is inevitably going to dump on it.
“Do you want to watch something?” Kara asks, and Lena passes her the remote.
“You choose–I doubt I’ll stay awake through a whole episode of anything,” she says, and Kara stops, stricken.
“Am I keeping you awake? You can totally go to bed Lee, I don’t want you to feel you have to treat me like a guest when I’m more like a refugee...”
“No, this is perfect, I’m glad I can unwind over Chinese food,” Lena promises instantly. “Just so long as you won’t be offended if I drift off.”
The food isn’t as terrible as she’d feared. It’s good, even, and Lena realizes that she’s been lying to herself every time she’s insisted that she’d rather have a kale salad than anything involving grease. It’s the kind of self-delusion that’s been hammered into her since childhood, and there’s a sharp wistfulness to the way she feels about Kara, who is honest with herself and others, and crams dumplings whole into her mouth.
She does start to drift off once her belly is full, putting her wine down on the table while she’s just conscious enough to know she should, and letting her head fall to the side and onto Kara’s shoulder.
Kara is warm and smells nice. She smells like Lena’s expensive shower gel, in fact, since that’s what’s stocked in the guest bathroom. Her arm comes around Lena’s shoulder, holding her steady, and Lena can’t remember a moment when she’s been more content.
She’s not sure how much time has passed when she feels Kara stir underneath her, feels herself shifting as an arm goes under her knees. She’s being carried to bed, she realizes, and she lets her head fall against Kara’s chest for the short walk, lets herself be arranged under the covers before Kara drops an affectionate kiss onto her forehead, and she falls into a deeper sleep.
**
The thing is, having Kara in her apartment just fits. A week passes, and then two, and Lena keeps waiting for the moment when it becomes annoying, when she wants her space and can’t have it. But the truth is that when she’s feeling good, she wants to share it with Kara, and when she’s tired and grouchy, she wants the comfort of being around Kara, and when she’s miserable the only person she wants to confide in is Kara. So all in all, having a live-in Kara is extremely convenient.
The third Tuesday morning that Kara is in her apartment, Lena wakes up first and makes coffee for both of them, which is becoming the routine. She’s already showered and dressed by the time Kara stumbles into the kitchen, still soft and trying to rub wakefulness into her eyes.
“Lenaaaa,” she practically whines, and flops her head down onto Lena’s shoulders, rubbing her nose affectionately against Lena’s neck. When Kara is sleepy she is affectionate, Lena has learned.
“Good morning, Kar,” she says affectionately, reaches around to run gentle fingers through Kara’s hair. “If you can get yourself into a chair, I’ll bring you coffee and eggs.”
“I’m comfy here,” Kara mutters against her neck, but after a moment she moves anyways, collapsing at the kitchen table. Lena pours coffee into a mug and adds gruesome amounts of cream and sugar. She eyes Kara, who has her head back on the chair and is soaking up the sunlight just peeking through the window.
Kara tends to hit wakefulness around the time the sun rises, in what Lena is sure is a complete and total coincidence. Sure enough, the sun has risen fully as Lena drops scrambled eggs onto plates (her serving contains spinach. Kara’s does not.) and by the time Lena puts things onto the table and sits across from her, Kara is wide awake and looking excited to have food.
“Seriously, best roommate ever ,” she says, shoving her fork gleefully into the mountain of breakfast Lena has apportioned to her, and then adds, “oh!! Before I forget to ask–what are you doing Thursday night?”
“Working, as per usual,” Lena says, digging into her own eggs with slightly less enthusiasm and more decorum. “Why do you ask?”
“Thursday night is game night!” Kara explains. “I usually host it, but Alex is taking over hostess duties until I have an apartment again. But you should come with me!! It’ll be way more fun if you’re there–we would kick everybody’s butts at Taboo.”
“True,” Lena acknowledges, because she and Kara would absolutely kick everybody’s butts at Taboo, “but I really do have to work late. I have an overseas conference call. But you should have it here, if you like! This is your home as long as you’re staying here - I want you to feel comfortable having guests.”
“That’s a great idea, actually!” Kara says. “That means that whenever you get off work you can join in! I’ll make sure we save Taboo for last, ok?” The way she grins at Lena is a little too triumphant for Lena not to notice she’s been played.
“I’ll look forward to it,” she says dryly, and tries not to be too warmed by the way Kara giggles into her eggs.
She doesn’t deliberately draw out the conference call on Thursday evening, but she’s not disappointed when it goes later than planned. It’s pushing 10 o’clock by the time she gets back to her apartment, and she’s hoping, just a little, that Kara’s guests will have already cleared out. Her hopes are dashed when she opens her front door to the sound of laughter.
She makes a halfhearted attempt to move quietly toward her bedroom, but she hasn’t gone three steps before she hears Kara’s delighted, “Lena!” and has to shift directions toward the living room.
“Hello! This looks like fun,” she greets them, pasting her most practiced smile onto her face. It’s the expected crowd. Alex and Maggie are curled up together on the large chair, and Kara is sharing the couch with James and Winn, while Lucy sits on the floor with her head against James’ knee. They’ve got wine and what looks like some kind of complicated card game strewn across the coffee table and onto the floor, the remains of laughter visible on all their faces.
Kara beckons her over and Lena obediently comes when called, laughing when Kara places a deliberately silly kiss on her cheek in greeting. If it had been just the two of them, she wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but she can feel Alex’s eyes taking in the interaction.
Still, it’s nice that even when she’s surrounded by her friends, Kara is this glad to see her.
“You have to play,” Kara tells her urgently. “I need you on my team, Winn is terrible .”
“Hey!” Winn objects, and then shrugs like he knows she’s only speaking the truth. “Nice to see you again, Lena. I like your apartment.”
“Yes, very swanky,” Maggie adds from her spot on the chair. She and Alex look extremely cozy and a little tipsy, and Lena remembers Kara saying that they’re working things out after some kind of problem. From where she’s standing, it looks fairly worked out.
Kara’s hand creeps up to wrap beseechingly around Lena’s wrist, and she has to laugh at the deliberate-yet-somehow-effective puppy dog eyes that Kara makes at her.
“Well if you need to be rescued, of course I’ll join in,” she promises. “Let me put my things down and get a drink and then I’ll join you, alright?”
Kara pouts a little but releases her wrist, and Lena doesn’t let herself take too long putting her bag down. She’s awkward in groups like this, has always felt her outsider status too keenly to have fun. Somehow she thinks this might be different –it’s hard not to enjoy being around Kara, whatever the circumstances. She pours herself a glass of wine in the kitchen and then brings the bottle out with her into the living room to help ease her way into the circle.
“Anybody need a refill?” she asks, and Lucy holds out her glass demandingly, eyes twinkling with laughter as James suggests that maybe she’s had enough.
“Hit me, Luthor. The rest of these guys need me handicapped if they want to win at anything,” she says, and she’s the member of this little club that Lena knows least, but Lena thinks that she likes her. She could like all of Kara’s friends, this laughing happy group that is so distant from the people she’s surrounded by.
“Lena, stop fraternizing with the enemy!” Kara demands, and scoots over so that Lena can sit next to her on the couch. There’s still not really enough space, it’s not a big enough couch for four, but Lena squeezes in anyways.
“Here, share my cards for this round, I’ll teach you how to play,” Kara says.
It’s easy to fall back into the pattern that they’ve been building up these past weeks, and it’s not long before Lena is practically in Kara’s lap sharing her cards. Kara is all warmth and wicked laughter, leaning in to whisper strategies about the demise of the other players, and Lena is so drunk on the intimacy of it that she forgets to be self-conscious.
“Kara, can I speak to you for a moment?” Alex says, and that’s when Lena falls back into reality with a snap.
“Alex, can’t it wait? I’m finally winning,” Kara argues.
“Lena’s winning, you mean,” James says, and Alex just smiles in this oddly placid way that makes it clear she’s about to explode and jerks her head toward the kitchen.
“Fine, time out, I’ll be right back,” Kara says, and squeezes Lena’s hand as she detangles herself and climbs off the couch.
When Lena looks away from her, she is caught by several pairs of very knowing eyes.
“Um….” she mutters, and she can feel the heat building to the tips of her ears, knows that she must be turning an extremely unflattering shade of red.
“Those Danvers sisters, they’re deadly aren’t they?” Maggie says, and gives her a wink. Lena just closes her eyes and slumps against the couch, lets the good-natured laughter wash over her.
When Kara and Alex come back in a few minutes later, Kara is oddly subdued, and game night doesn’t take long to wrap up after that.
Lena is dying to know what Alex said, hopes that whatever it was, it didn’t paint Lena in too villainous a light. She can’t bring herself to ask; she’s too afraid of the answer.
“Are you alright?” she finally says, as she and Kara clear away the wine glasses together. She hates the uncertainty that she can hear in her own voice, but Kara smiles at her like she’s glad Lena asked.
“I’m fine. Just sibling stuff,” she shrugs. When Lena hugs her goodnight, Kara presses close for an extra moment, as though taking comfort, and Lena wishes she could hold onto her forever.
**
It comes back up a couple days later, though. Kara has been shifting nervously all evening, obviously bursting with something she needs to say, and Lena has been waiting patiently for her to get it out.
She’s getting more and more nervous, and her guesses about what Kara needs to say are getting wilder, when Kara suddenly blurts out, “my apartment is fixed up. It has been for a few days, actually, and - Alex is right, I should move back. I’m taking advantage of your kindness.”
“You’re not taking advantage,” Lena says almost automatically, because she’s used to reassuring Kara, and then she shoves down her disappointment long enough for her brain to catch up to what Kara is actually saying. “Do you want to stay?” she asks, trying not to sound too eager. In no time at all, she’s grown used to this closeness, used to having Kara there every evening and then there again in the morning.
“I’d love to have you as a permanent roommate, if you’re interested,” she says, and then tries to interpret the twisting of Kara’s face.
“No! No, I don’t—I think I probably can’t live with you anymore,” Kara says, and Lena didn’t quite realize how much she was hoping until this moment, when she feels herself turn brittle and start to crack. Of course Kara wouldn’t want to stay.
“Totally fine, I didn’t mean to pressure you!” she says, starts to wind up for the damage control, and Kara gets a panicked gleam in her eyes and starts trying to cut her off.
“No, wait! It’s not because I don’t love living with you, I do , this has been amazing. It’s just, I mean—I’ve kind of been wanting to ask you out on a—a date?” Kara’s voice has gone higher and higher pitched until the sentence ends in something that is more like a squeak than a word.
“A date?” Kara is approximately the color of cranberry sauce, and Lena is just amazed to find out how quickly she can go from feeling broken to feeling the most whole that she has ever been. She makes a show of considering Kara’s words, allows herself a slow smile. “You’re right - you probably shouldn’t be living with me when we go out on our first date.” She smirks at Kara, who is fading from bright red back to merely vivid pink.
“Is that a yes?” she asks breathlessly, and Lena can’t resist anymore. She pulls Kara close to her, relishing this permission to place a gentle hand at the small of Kara’s back, at her neck. When she presses their mouths together she can feel that Kara is practically hyperventilating and she keeps it simple, just gentle contact until Kara calms and begins to melt against her.
“That’s a yes,” she confirms when she pulls back. She tries to arrange her face into something cool and collected, and then gives it up as a lost cause. “I have a follow-up question, though. How many dates do we go on before I can ask you to move in with me again? I’m not totally clear on the etiquette.”
Kara laughs, brings a wondering hand up to cup Lena’s cheek. “Well, my lease is up in June… how many dates do you think we can fit in?”