Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Mm, but why," Lena slurs, trying to shake the haze of sleep off. She takes a small step forward and wobbles a bit, then feels Kara's hand on her back to steady her. "Why're we up?"

"You're helping me out," Kara says warmly, rubbing her hands over Lena's shoulders like maybe she can massage her awake.

It doesn't make a real difference—however nice Kara's hands feel, Lena's still too disoriented to fully process what's going on. She blinks once more, stares at the groceries lined up on the kitchen counter, and decides sleep sounds a hundred times better than whatever this is.

"What's it you want me to do?" she asks, voice low and morning-raspy. 

"Muffins," Kara explains, settling her hand low on Lena's back. "Thought you could make them for the team."

"Mmm," Lena hums, taking stock of the ingredients, then she blinks heavily again and opts for turning and shoving her face against Kara's neck instead of thinking of a better response.

Kara's skin is a bit damp since she's fresh from the shower, and she smells strongly of shampoo and body wash and, well, Kara—warm and familiar and inviting and amazing. And she's even wearing a super soft flannel that's barely buttoned, so her bright red sports bra is showing.

But Lena's too tired and groggy to even appreciate it.

They went to bed at least later than three last night, she remembers, but by the time Kara shook Lena awake at the ass-crack of dawn 7:20am, she'd already went for a six mile run and showered and was beaming like she'd had a solid eight hours of rest. 

"Would do it myself, but think I'd burn the house down," Kara continues, looping her arms around Lena's waist and pulling her into a tight hug.

Lena yawns wide enough to stretch out her mouth painfully, and then ducks her head so her face is resting against Kara's shoulder. Maybe if she zones out enough, she can fall asleep just like this. 

"We could just order some instead," she tries.

"Yah, maybe, but. I eat baked goods for a living and I've never had any as good as yours," Kara says, and legitimately sounds like she's being genuine. "Don't you want to make them for the team, please? They'll love them."

"Not really," Lena grumbles, then pauses. "Maybe? Sure, yeah fine. I'll make them."

"Aw, hey," Kara says, squatting a bit and nudging Lena's head up so they're face-to-face. She waits a second for Lena to fully blink her eyes open, and then she starts pressing quick little kisses against her mouth and chin and nose and all over her face, gentle enough that they tickle.

So Lena ends up giggling breathlessly after a few seconds, with Kara smiling wide against her cheek.

"I'm sorry, baby. You don't have to," Kara assures her. "I just thought it'd be fun, but looks like my sweetheart went a little too hard last night."

"No, it's fine," Lena says, blinking a few times before officially declaring herself awake. And then she narrows her eyes and thumps Kara's chest, maybe purposely brushing against the exposed skin. "And I went an acceptable level of hard, you're just a freak of nature that survives on two-hours of sleep."

"Actually, I didn't sleep at all," Kara laughs, blush creeping up her cheeks. "Still running on steam from yesterday."

"What?" Lena frowns, actually perking up now, since last night was their first time spending the night together and Kara couldn't even get to sleep. Maybe Lena's uncomfortable to sleep with. Maybe she's--shit. "Was it me? I could—"

"No," Kara says quickly, serious crinkle peeking on her forehead. "It's nothing like that. I just, I had an armful of a pretty, warm girl and I didn't know what to do with myself, okay? So I went for a run. No biggie. We can nap later."

"You sure?" Lena asks, folding her arms and quirking an eyebrow. "Maybe I should leave you alone, since you can't handle me and all."

Kara loops an arm around her waist again, shaking her head. "No, no. Don't be dramatic," she smiles, then adds, "Seems like you're awake now, though. So are we making the muffins, or are we ordering?"

"Yeah, yeah," Lena says, resting her head against Kara's chest one last time. "Lets get to it."

After some consideration, she decides she'll make muffins and biscuits, good for a nice breakfast, and she has a pretty good recipe for a homemade jam--one that she can make using just the ingredients in Kara's kitchen.

So Lena gathers up the additional things she needs, chugs a cold water to shock her system awake, and then starts getting everything prepped.

First she takes out two muffin pans so she can make them in big batches, has Kara line them with the little cups so they're ready when she needs them, and gets some flat-sheets ready for the biscuits.

She's still a bit tired and her stomach is growling thinking about food, but she doesn't mind. It's like she's in the zone, in her calm place. She dices up a load of strawberries, slices another two for garnishes, zests an orange. Measures out her chocolate chips and flour, sugar, milk, canola oil, mixes and puts strawberries, sugar, and orange zest into a bowl to extract the juices, all while Kara mashes up fruit to go in the jam or rolls out dough for the biscuits.

They make a pretty good team, the two of them, working mostly in a comfortable silence.

So, by about 9:30 when the team is starting to stir themselves awake, they're mostly done with everything--just waiting for the last batch of biscuits from the oven and sneaking in loads of sugary-sweet kisses since they both couldn't help stealing fruit from the berry mix.

And they both can't seem to keep their hands off each other. Which is how Alex finds them--Lena pressed against the counter with Kara's hands on her waist, kissing and giggling, and - "Hey, Alex," Kara chirps, giving Lena's side a squeeze. "Everyone up?"

"They're getting there," Alex says, voice a little scratchy. "Guessing Lena's responsible for these lovely smells?" 

"Who else?" Kara giggles, stepping from in front of Lena so she can see Alex. "She made muffins and biscuits and jam. And there're eggs and bacon in the fridge if you wanna fry up some protein to go with it?"

"Sure thing," Alex nods, and then she nudges Lena's shoulder on her way to the fridge. "Thanks for cooking, smells delicious. It's like waking up on the weekends back home."

"I know, right?" Kara smiles. "Didn't realize how much I missed smelling fresh-baked things until now. So lucky to have you," she adds, looking at Lena. "Honestly."

"Yeah, luck really is the only thing to describe what's happening there," Alex smiles adorably, sleep fog still heavy on her face.

Lena tries her best not to sink in on herself with how flattered she feels--having Kara compliment her and smile at her is one thing, but having the full appreciative attention of two Danvers is a whole other level of overwhelming.

"Anyway, I'll get these fried up and ready," Alex continues, gesturing inside the fridge. "You two wanna rustle everyone up, so they're mostly awake by the time everything's done?"

Lena thought it was a lot having Kara and Alex compliment her, but ten minutes into the entire team gushing over how amazing she is, a weird squirmy feeling awakens inside her chest--something that she can't push down, something that feels like it glows out of her entire body.

Something that tickles her throat until she's smiling, wide and happy and unabashedly. 

"It wasn't a big deal. Really," Lena says, waving her hand through the air. "And it's mostly thanks to Kara. I'd still be asleep if it weren't for her."

"Stop being modest, you're amazing," Alex says, rivaling Kara in the sheer volume of everything she's eating.

"Yeah, it's true," Sam chimes in, the main person edging on everyone's compliments, the main person that needs to stop, because Lena's not used to this much attention. "Lee's super talented at everything and she's smart as shit." Then she perks up and nods her head delightedly. "You should tell them about your research. Do the thing where you talk about polyatomic anions. Come on. It's so good. Do it."

"I--" Lena laughs, shaking her head, but Sam just hits her with the sparkly, sparkly eyes, and. Fine.

She doesn't really have a thing where she talks about polyatomic anions--she just had a moment where she was trying to explain her research to Sam once, and all Sam said was that she's cute when she talks about it, but it's otherwise incomprehensible.

Anywho - "Well, it's really just polyatomic ions. Anion just means it has a negative charge, but there are also polyatomic cations. If--well, in simpler terms, if you think about monatomic ions--"

"Lena, please," Alex laughs. "I'm morally obligated to tell you these idiots barely know what their last names are, please don't waste your breath explaining this to them."

Then the girl next to Alex slaps Alex's thigh and scoffs, loud and dramatic. "I have no idea what a polya-whatnot is, but Lena saying that is the sexiest thing I've ever heard, and if you interrupt her again I'll be morally obligated to shank you."

Alex snorts, playfully elbowing her back. "Sam's whole point is that Lena's probably the most brilliant person any of us will ever meet in our lives, and she's just eighteen, so we should all be ashamed of our lack of accomplishments."

Lena drops her head to hide how her cheeks are gushing, but she hears someone gasp, "What? You're eighteen? Thought you were a third year."

"Yeah, she started uni at sixteen," Sam responds for her. Everyone is making everything such a big deal, when it's not. Lena absolutely cannot handle this. All she did was make muffins and start uni a little early. "She even had to like, petition to live in the dorms and shit."

"Unfortunately I got roomed with this nerd," Lena says, throwing a piece of biscuit in Sam's direction, hoping it'll signal her to. Calm. Down.

But, it doesn't, not at all. In fact, it backfires.

Sam retaliates by lunging to tickle her, fingers poking fiercely into Lena's sides, not relenting until Lena's laughing hard enough her stomach's starting to cramp. And then she just continues on bragging about Lena like a proud mom chatting with coworkers at the office.

"She technically has enough credits to graduate this December, but she has a grant," she says, like a research grant is some fabulous thing.

And then Kara only adds to blowing things out of proportion by echoing, "You have a grant?"

"Hell yeah, she does," Sam says. "Tell them, Lena."

"Sam, no one wants to hear about--" Lena blushes, but the team starts chanting tell us tell us tell us, and she caves. She sits up and re-gathers herself and tries to explain that, ugh. It's not that big of a deal, really, it's just - "I got this big--or, well--" Maybe she shouldn't say big. "I worked with this professor and was doing solo research, and. He helped me apply for this government grant for some quantum things I was working on and. I got it. And I'm sort of like, the youngest person to get a grant like that and for that amount of funding in my research area."

She says the last part a little softly, because. It's--okay, fine--maybe she sort of feels like it is a big deal, but it's maybe not actually that impressive, or--

"Holy crap, Lena," Kara says, eyes wide and bright and genuinely impressed. "I mean I knew you were out of my league, Alex keeps reminding me, but. Crap."

"Yeah, you're like Tom in Parks and Rec," Alex says, a mix of smiles and laughter. "She's so out of your league, you're not even playing the same sport. Lena's in the NBA and you work in the muffin shop next to the stadium."

"Holy shit," Sam snorts.

"Hey," Kara gasps, absolutely defenseless.

"Oh my god," Lena coughs, heat flashing through her cheeks.

She has half-a-mind to join in the uproarious laughter with the rest of the team. But she sees the flush creeping into Kara's cheeks and decides wrapping her arms around her shoulders and cuddling her is a better course of action.

"It's okay," she assures her, pressing a tiny kiss to her ear and shifting her way mostly into Kara's lap. "I'd eat at your muffin shop every day, even as an NBA star."

"I know, baby," Kara smiles, wrapping her arms around Lena's waist and nipping at her lip. "You're mine and I don't plan on flubbing this up no matter what Alex says."

"I know, I trust you," Lena says, because she does. Because now feels like as good a time as any to put her cards on the table.

Lena fully expects Kara to be knocked out by the time she gets out of the shower, which is why she takes an extra twenty minutes and exfoliates and uses an industrial amount of Kara's shampoo and face wash.

But when she walks from the bathroom, she just finds Kara awake in bed, listening to music on her phone and typing something on her laptop.

The moment she sees Lena, she sets the laptop aside and opens her arms like she wants Lena to climb in her lap.

So Lena does, and after few seconds of Kara sniffing her hair, Kara decides, "I really like it when you smell like me, should use my shower more often."

And then she turns them, presses Lena down on her back, and starts kissing her.

"I wanna eat you out," Kara announces. She's on top of Lena and they've been making out heavily for twenty minutes--so the statement should make sense--but Lena's brain still scrambles like it's the world's most unexpected non-sequitur.

"You wanna what?" she asks, ungracefully. "Huh?"

"I said we'll talk about it, remember? So we're talking about it," Kara clarifies, flicking Lena's bottom lip with her tongue. "Last night you asked what things I had in mind to get you flushed. I mostly want to go down on you, want to--why're you so red?"

"I'm not," Lena says quickly, a dumb defense because she can tell she is and Kara can see her. "It's nothing, really."

Truthfully, she's just, overwhelmed, mostly because - because no one's ever eaten her out before, no one's ever gone down on her. Not ever, hasn't ever come close, never had the chance, and now that Kara's actually said the words out loud, it's suddenly a real, honest possibility.

And it's not even like she's opposed or doesn't want it or anything like that. She just--

She started uni underage, is the thing, and until last October she hadn't even been eighteen yet, hadn't even drank or partied before. But, by the time she was old enough, it just felt weird to completely switch focuses from research to shenanigans and getting laid. So she buried herself in work and got satisfaction from those accomplishments instead.

Then this summer came around, and both Sam and her research mentor told her (read: mandated) she needed to take the time off and enjoy it.

So she did. And she is enjoying it, really; she drinks now, goes to parties, and she's even on a sports team. But this feels like a bigger step--one she wants to take definitely, but one that makes her nervous.

This whole, long thought process was basically to explain that she's never had anyone go down on her and she's nervous about it.

That's all; that's why she's blushing profusely and struggling to find the right words to say - because she doesn't know how to tell Kara all of that without feeling weird. And then Kara might not want to do it anymore, because people are iffy with first times, and.

Lena doesn't want to risk that.

So, she figures, there's really no harm in not bringing it up; it's not a big deal, anyway. "I mean I--I just really want you to do that, too. That's all."

"Glad to hear that, baby," Kara smiles, kissing her cheek. Then she adds, "So I've never been someones first time," and she's actually asking if she is, Lena knows because she's searching Lena's face like she does whenever she's trying to figure out how she really feels.

Lena sort of, exhales, relieved, feels infinitely more comfortable telling Kara this way, just has to nod a little. So she does, and Kara continues, "But I've been told I'm pretty good, never had a complaint before."

"Not even one?" Lena smiles, matching Kara's grin and feeling most of her nerves melt away. "Very impressive."

"Okay, maybe one," Kara says playfully, rolling her eyes off in the distance. "But nine out of ten dentist recommended is good enough for toothpaste, right? If you can trust Sensodyne to fight plaque, you can trust me mouth to get you off."

"Oh my god, that was so bad," Lena laughs, like really laughs, and Kara kisses right into it, pressing all her weight against Lena's side until Lena's giggles die off and she actually starts kissing back.

Lena lets out a small squeak when Kara nips at her lip, but she settles into making out again pretty quickly. Just relaxes and lets Kara take over, lets her work them up to where they were a few minutes ago.

She expects their kissing to be slow and deep, intoxicating, expects Kara's tongue to be all over her mouth, for it to be messy, for Kara to bite at her lips until they're tingly and swollen, because that's the only way Kara knows how to kiss her.

What Lena doesn't expect, however, is the way Kara stretches out against her like she's trying to nuzzle Lena with her entire body, the way Kara grips her fingers into her bare hip and presses her firmly into the bed, the way that Kara feels like she's all over Lena, like she's touching her everywhere at once. 

Kara's kissing her with an urgency Lena's never felt before, licking into her mouth slow and methodically, slipping a hand into her hair and tugging it rougher than usual, breathing probably as choppy as her heart's beating.

And Lena feels breathless, feels shaken, feels heated right down to her core, and good, so good.

"You're always so sweet for me," Kara says softly, breaking away so she can drop her mouth to Lena's neck, trailing a line of kisses underneath her jaw, lips wet against her skin. "I just wanna make you feel good, baby. It's all I want, I swear. Is this okay?"

"S'okay," Lena hums, eyes fluttering shut as she tilts her head back.

She's pretty thankful for the background noise of the AC at this point, for the lull of whatever song's playing on Kara's phone. She's happy she's got a little room, a little sound buffer, to accompany her moan when Kara sucks a deep, stingy bruise right over her pulse.

"You like that, sweetheart?" Kara asks afterwards, placing wet kisses over the bruise, trailing up to her jawline, tilting Lena's head back and kissing under her chin. "I've wanted to get my mouth on your skin ever since I first saw you. That's what I was gonna say yesterday night. You're so pretty, but you'd be even prettier covered in my marks. Just want to let the world know you're mine, if you let me."

Lena's hips press up like an involuntary response to Kara saying that. Somewhere along the line Kara went from adorable and giggly, to whatever this is--and Lena's absolutely responding to it. It feels like she's on fire, like electricity is pulsing non-stop through her body.

Kara just keeps on kissing her neck, dragging her tongue across it and biting on more bruises. Lena doesn't know how long Kara stays there, licking and kissing and sucking on her skin, but by the time she pulls up Lena's practically climbing her hips up Kara's thigh. Her back pulling off the bed searching for friction friction friction, anything she can find.

"You taste so good," Kara murmurs, hand trailing up Lena's shirt, slow and heavy and warm against Lena's skin. "But I bet you taste even better here." 

She keeps going higher with her hand, Lena's breath catching with each inch, skin heating up everywhere her fingertips touch.

But Kara stops before she gets there, rests her hand high on Lena's ribs, fingers grazing the underside of Lena's boob. It's like she just... pauses, Lena's shirt pooling around her wrist so the cool air's crashing against Lena's exposed belly, and it's so frustrating because Lena wants to be touched fucking yesterday.

Please, Lena thinks, pleasepleaseplease--

"Are you sure, baby?" Kara asks, scraping her teeth across one of the bruises on Lena's neck, and.

Lena hadn't even realized she said that out loud.

"Are you sure you want me to touch you?" Kara clarifies, stretching up to fit their mouths together again. She kisses Lena for a long minute, like she's hungry for her, desperate even, but she's still not moving her hand, not touching her, like she's just waiting. 

"Tell me I can touch you, sweetheart," she says, right into Lena's mouth, just as hungrily as her kiss felt. "Need you to say it."

"Touch me," Lena says, tangling her hands in Kara's shirt and twisting till her circulation's strained. "Touch me, touch me, touch me -"

She cuts off because the air gets knocked out of her the second Kara brushes a thumb across her nipple and rolls it between her fingers, the second she lifts her shirt until it's bunched beneath her arm pits and Lena's boobs are exposed.

But really, really the air gets Sock'em Bopper™ sucker-punched out of Lena the second Kara drops her head and mouths hot and wet at her nipple, when she sucks it into her mouth and rolls it with her tongue so fucking wet like she's whittling down a Jolly Rancher.

It's like - it's everything and then some, even better than Lena imagined. Kara's mouth feels amazing in general, but it's a whole other level when it's wrapped around Lena's nipple--teasing and hot and soft soft soft, in a way that Lena's never noticed before when they're just kissing.

She almost feels like it's too much to handle, like her head's spinning so much she's dizzy. Not to mention she's wet inside her shorts, against Kara's thigh, so wet she can feel it when she shifts her hips, so turned on she's panting just at the way her clit rubs against the material.

"Christ, you're just - you're everything, aren't you?" Kara mutters suddenly, in a tone that suggests it wasn't exactly meant for Lena to hear, lifting her head and pressing her face between Lena's boobs. And then she just... nuzzles? is the best way Lena can describe it, rubs her face all over Lena's skin like she's simply obsessed with how it feels. "You're so perfect, so pretty. Unbelievable. I just wanna."

She cuts off abruptly, leaving Lena's brain scrambling, trying to figure out the end of that sentence. But then she feels Kara's thumb slip into the waistband of her shorts and it feels like her heart smacks against her chest wall.

"You wanna what?" Lena questions, running her hands through Kara's hair, tugging a bit when it takes a while for a response.

"I wanna find out how you taste down here, too," Kara says, pulling Lena's shorts down an inch, breathing hard on top of her like she's getting off on this just as much as Lena is. "I want my head between Lena Luthor's legs."

Oh. That, that shouldn't be shocking, but. It still takes a second for Lena's heart to stop beating in her ears, and then her voice finally catches up with her and she manages to get out a solid, "Um."

Kara slips her thumb out of Lena's shorts as soon as she says it and puts it on the inside of her thigh instead, spreads her leg wide and kneads at the skin. "It's okay, baby. I can go when you're ready, no rush."

Fuck, shit. Now really isn't the time to mess it up, she actually wants this.

"No, I'm ready, I'm ready now," Lena rushes out, pushing her shorts down herself until they're resting just below her hips, squeezing her eyes tight and trying her best not to have a heart attack before she even gets to feel Kara's mouth between her legs.

"Okay, baby. Good, you're so good," Kara says, voice soft and pleasant and filling up Lena's head space. "Just tell me if you need me to stop, and I'll do it right away, no questions."

Lena hums instead of responding, but it seems to be good enough for Kara because she feels her lift up.

Then she feels her slide Lena's shorts completely off, feels her spread her legs. And then Lena can feel her shuffling backwards, feel her hair tickling the insides of her thighs, feel her kissing the skin there and sucking on a quick bruise.

"So this is the other place you thought about me kissing you?" Kara asks. And the warmth of her breath is close, so close that Lena shivers when it gusts against how wet she is. Her stomach muscles clench, hands digging into the blanket beneath them in anticipation.

Kara doesn't give her much of a chance to answer the question, though, because - because she's licking her, warm wet tongue circling over Lena's hole with absolutely no hesitation, slow and thorough and nice and fuck, now she's pressing it inside Lena.  

Lena sucks in a breath so sharp, it almost hurts her chest, head spinning so fiercely she barely knows where she is. There was a question, a question, she remembers there was a question but not sure what it was. Fuck, shit fuck.

“Gotta keep these open. Need some room down here,” Kara laughs, curling her hands around Lena's thighs to pull them apart.

“Sorry,” Lena breathes, already too distracted, hadn't even realized she'd snapped her legs shut.

"It's okay, you're perfect," Kara says, pressing a kiss to the inside of Lena's thigh, then she adds, "I got you, sweetheart. Promise. Just relax."

She lets her head drop back between Lena's legs with that, and--

The second time Kara licks her, it's just as slow, just as sure, but this time it's a lot firmer and this time it's over Lena's clit. And this time, Lena's thighs start shaking just from the contact like she's close already. Her hands fly into Karas hair, pulling and scratching at her scalp, hips circling to match Kara's pace, mind circling because fuck.

She was right, she was - Kara doesn't do anything half-assed and this feels so nice it's like - like it's breaking Lena.

She's biting her lip so hard it hurts, and her skin feels warm, very warm, so hot to the touch. Tingly like her whole body might go numb, and she's saying things out loud but can barely understand herself, because it's all just too much.

So when Kara sucks Lena's clit into her mouth, sloppy and wet and tugging, she, fuck.

All Lena can do is squeeze her eyes tighter, lift her hand to her mouth, bite down on her knuckle and come.

She comes just like that, intense and overwhelming and riding up against Kara's mouth with her hand gripping tight tight tight in Kara's hair.

Her head's spinning afterwards, cool air splashing against her body like it's waited this whole time to catch up with her, and she feels lost and disoriented like she can't come down from the high she felt.

But Kara's folding herself around her a second later, rubbing Lena's hair out of her eyes and massaging her damp skin. Kissing Lena's face and talking.

It takes a second for Lena to focus on what Kara's saying, but when she does, she's pretty sure she blushes harder than she's ever done before, because-- "Christ," Kara's breathing. "You're so pretty when you come, even prettier than I thought, prettier than I could've imagined. You're so perfect, I don't know how - don't know how I got so lucky."

It all feels so raw, so honest like before--maybe Lena isn't supposed to hear it, but she wants to, wants to hear everything Kara says.

"I just. You mind if I?" Kara pants against Lena's cheek, nudging her hand down in her own shorts, snug between her hips and Lena's thigh. "So close, just need. You're just so - crap, you're - I just -" she rambles on, breathing getting heavier by the second.

Lena wants to jump in, wants to say I could help, or something to the tune of that, but.

It's just - she can't.

She can't because of the way Kara's shifting her hips against her thigh, because of how hard she's breathing against Lena's cheek, how she's mumbling incoherently, because of how sexy it is. It's the sexiest thing Lena's ever been a part of, and she want's it to keep going.

Like she absolutely can't get over the fact that Kara's getting herself off while practically on top of her. The fact that Kara's talking about Lena the entire time she's touching herself.

The fact that--shit--that Kara's legs are snapping shut around Lena's thigh and she's pressing her damp forehead against Lena's face, and she's moaning. 

She's making sounds just like she did at the party last night, but these are even better, fuller, lovelier, so beautiful. Kara's so fucking beautiful, absolutely mesmerizing.

She comes shuddering, nearly twice as hard as Lena did from her own hand, sweaty and shaky and biting against Lena's cheek, and -

Jesus Christ, Lena could probably go again if her body didn't feel dead-tired. She's so into Kara, it's almost unfathomable.

"Sorry," Kara mumbles afterwards, pulling the covers over them, curling around Lena warm, heavy, snug, perfect. "Didn't mean to get so carried away, sorry if--"

"Stop," Lena says, gripping her fingers in her shirt and holding her close. Kara's so dumb. "You're so dumb, and perfect, and I'm obsessed with you, so don't apologize for not doing anything wrong. Dummy."

"Oh," Kara says, tension melting off of her as she sinks more into Lena. "Are you okay? How are you?"

"I'm fine," Lena says, sleepiness already invading her mental space. "I'm happy. I'm really happy. I really like you."

"Okay, okay," Kara laughs, swatting at her chest. "Maybe we should go to sleep before you confess something you don't mean."

"You afraid I'm gonna drop the L word?" Lena giggles.

Kara brushes a finger over her side like she has half a mind to tickle her, and Lena can hear her blush by the way her laugh gushes. "Afraid wouldn't be the right word," Kara says, "because that doesn't scare me."

Oh. Lena thinks about that, but decides maybe she shouldn't. So she lets them sit in silence a minute, scratching at Kara's skin, before she declares, "I'm gonna go to sleep now."

Kara shifts like she's going to say something else, so Lena scratches again, then closes her eyes and drifts off fast.

"So I had an idea," Kara says, smiling and intertwining their fingers as they walk through the park. "Something fun we could do today."

It's been two days since they had sex, wonderful sex. And Kara spent them mostly asleep since she crashed hard from her completely unsustainable lifestyle.

So now she's being super cuddly and apologetic and making it up to Lena with ice cream and park dates and loads of compliments, and whatever this is that she thinks will be fun.

"Mmkay, I'm always down for whatever," Lena says, then clarifies, "Within reason of course. What're you thinking?"

"Dunno if you know this, but I have this YouTube channel," Kara starts, flushed like there's something embarrassing about how charming she is on YouTube. "It has a pretty decent amount of followers, and I've mostly done frisbee videos, but. I was thinking--I've been watching these eating challenges, and I like to eat. And you like to eat. So maybe we can do a couples' one today."

"What do you mean?" Lena asks, suspiciously. She likes to eat, but not usually when challenge follows it.

Kara shrugs, nibbling over her smile like she knows she's suggesting something absurd. "We just, you know, together we eat 10k calories of donuts. It's not that hard, honest. Just like, six each."

Lena hums in consideration, but Kara looks cute and hopeful, so she knows she's already lost. "Fine, I guess I like donuts."

Within the next half-hour, they're on their way inside a donut shop, Kara camera recording the whole thing with her little hand-tripod-thingamabob.

"So I'm with my girlfriend, Lena, today--oh, say hi, Lena," Kara says, flipping the camera in her direction.

"Hi," Lena says as cheery as possible, and then Kara turns the camera back to herself.

"We're gonna do the 10k calorie donut challenge, but with both of our calories combined. And I just want to point out early, it'll probably be me eating everything and her appearing mildly disgusted the whole time, but--"

"Hey, no it's cute when you inhale food like a space-vacuum," Lena comments, leaning over the glass casing to check out the donut selection.

Kara smiles, just cute and alluring enough to be a perfect YouTube celebrity. "I don't know if that's a compliment, or sarcasm, but! Look at everything we got to choose from," she says, holding the camera away from them with her long arm so she can get Lena, her, and the donuts all in one shot. They probably look like proper weirdos, talking to a camera and posing weirdly with a donut case, but Kara seems comfortable, so Lena rolls with it. "Gonna let Lena pick everything out, so it's more likely she eats more."

Lena would comment on her being sweet for the camera, but she's always like this and it's terrible. "Blueberry cheesecake sounds good," she says, pointing at the case. "And that one cookie monster donut. And the cronut looks good."

She glances over for a second, and Kara's beaming at her like the dork she is. "It's like you were born to make decisions, so decisive." 

"I'm still getting used to everything you say being a compliment," she laughs.

"I think there's something to say about you if I only ever want to compliment my girlfriend."

Lena rolls her eyes, but she's smiling hard enough her cheeks are sore. "Yeah, yeah, we should put a compliment counter in the corner of the video to document how sappy you are."

"Good idea, sweetheart, should totally do that," Kara says, and then she flips the camera around to face her again, and says, "Thumbs up if I can get the compliment counter over fifty in less than thirty minutes."

Lena snorts. "Setting a high bar, I see."

"Well you're my perfect beautiful amazing lovely girlfriend, so of course. Sky's the limit."

"That counts as one," Lena points out. "No cheating the system."

Kara laughs loudly, probably too loud for the space they're in, but Lena's too charmed to feel self-conscious. "Alrighty," Kara says to the camera, "we're gonna wrap up here with the donuts, and be back when it's time to eat."

Then she turns the camera off and puts it away in her bag, snuggles up to Lena while they wait for the customers in front of them. "You're a natural at this," Lena says, reaching over to ruffle Kara's hair.

"Natural?" Kara asks, incredulous. "You should see yourself. You look so good on camera, baby. It's a wonder I don't eat you instead of the donuts."

"Honestly, truly," Lena says back.

Kara snorts, kissing Lena's ear only a smidge more surreptitiously than normal, considering they're in the middle of two dozen people. "Don't worry, will save room for a midnight snack."

Lena tucks her finger in Kara's collar and pulls her down to kiss her nose. "If you don't, I'll deliver you the divorce papers. Had to wait patiently through your two-year snooze."

"Don't worry, I'll definitely make it up," Kara smiles. "When it comes to that, it's just like food. You don't even have to ask, 'cause it's always a yes."

The next time Kara turns the camera on is fifteen minutes later.

They're in the jeep and Kara's explaining all the different donuts they picked out. "So this one's my personal fave, the chocolate long john filled with banana cream and with peanut butter mousse on top. Oh, and these little banana slices too."

Lena laughs just thinking about how massive that donut is, how it's actually a match for Kara's big hands, how for once something isn't dwarfed in her palms--and she sort of wants to see Kara eat it. "We should do that first, no way I'll touch it if it's last."

"But if you do it first, you're not going to eat anything else," Kara pouts, which is completely true, if Lena's being honest with herself.

So they go for the strawberry shortcake instead, Lena's personal favorite of the bunch.

She somehow manages to convince Kara she should take the first bite alone to tell her if it's good, but really Lena just wants an excuse to stare at Kara's pretty face. 

Really, she just wants to watch the way Kara closes her eyes and tilts her head back, the way her eyelashes flutter over her cheeks, the way she makes soft, soft pleased little noises. Noises Lena now knows are very similar to the sounds she makes when she's just about to--

Fuck. Lena licks her lips involuntarily.

"This is amazing," is Kara's verdict, talking with her mouth full and smiling through her chewing. She must mistakenly think Lena's thirst is aimed at the donut, since she smiles and offers it up to Lena's mouth. "Here baby, you can taste."

Lena cannot with the petnames right now. They keep making her glow and feel warm and appreciated and delicate in a weird way that she weirdly likes, and it's not fair. She'd do anything for Kara just because she calls her cutie and baby and pretty, and it's an outright crime.

"Yeah, sure," she says, smiling wide. She doesn't even give a shit about this donut, but she lets Kara feed her anyway. She takes a big bite, as big as she can, and - it sort of fucks her because a glob of the cream filling drips right down her lip onto her chin.

And then it fucks her even more, because Kara swipes the filling off her chin and sucks it off her finger in a way that splashes heat in Lena's belly, pretty lips glistening after she licks them clean.

"Gotta be careful with the filled ones because like..." Kara trails off, then cups her hand against her mouth and makes an exploding noise as she expands it, but Lena can swear Kara's eyes are staring right at her lips. She can't help but lick them again.

"It just explodes in your mouth," Kara finishes, turning her head away. "Alright, YouTube," she says, and holy shit, Lena forgot there was a camera. "The verdict on this one is a solid nine out ten. Let's try some others, shall we?"

She finishes up the rest of the strawberry shortcake and then sucks on her fingers, which, okay, Lena's remembering to breathe. Except she's not, and this is randomly the time her mind decides to notice how thick Kara's fingers are. 

"You gonna finish yours as well, or like. You wanna just share mine?" Kara asks, and Lena snaps her eyes to her... um, lap. "Pretty sure I could eat the lot of them if I put my mind to it, but wouldn't mind a little help. Watch my figure and all that."

"Course I'll help out," Lena says, and she fully plans on it. She needs this to be over as quick as possible.

"I feel like I have a food baby," Lena frowns, slipping her hand underneath her shirt and rubbing it over her belly for emphasis.

It's been hours since they actually did the challenge, but the swell of her stomach still hasn't gone down, feels likes she's proper bloated and definitely a couple pounds heavier, and she's never, ever eating five extra-large donuts again.

"Mmm, is that so?" Kara hums, nibbling her lip and ungluing herself from Lena's side. They've been cuddling for a while now, mostly in a food-coma-daze, so now Lena just feels neglected and cold with Kara no longer pressed to her.

That is, until Kara shuffles down her body, lifts her shirt over her sports bra, and presses a kiss right in the center of her belly.

"Didn't tell me we were expecting," she says casually, grinning wide enough that Lena's heart flutters. "What're we gonna name her, any ideas?"

"Her?" Lena quirks an eyebrow, trying to stay calm, trying--failing to stay calm. She still remembers the last time Kara was snuggled low between her legs, and that memory alone is enough to make her feel jittery.

"Yeah, of course. Could you imagine us with a boy?" Kara asks, smiling as she puts her mouth on Lena's belly again. Then she says, right against her skin, "What would we even do with him?"

Before Lena gets a chance to respond, Kara skims her lips across her belly, leaving the wettest little patch of skin. And then she does it again, trailing slow, wet kisses all along Lena's skin until Lena's lighting up bright red just from the heat curling inside her.

But that's nothing compared to the heat she feels when Kara closes her eyes, pretty lashes fanning over her cheeks, and just rubs her face against Lena's belly. Sighing every so often like she's getting worked up just doing that.

Which, honestly what?

"What are you doing down there?" Lena asks, nudging Kara's fringe off her forehead. Kara's gone a while without saying anything, and she's getting a little antsy about where this is going. "Just enjoying my fat?"

"Shh, baby, enjoying my snack," Kara murmurs, sinking her teeth in a little and licking out a broad, wet stripe against Lena's skin.

Lena moans, head tipping back, eyes fluttering shut. She can barely stay still while Kara licks her belly and bites at it, sucks bruises all over her skin--on her abdomen and hips and right underneath her bra-line.

She loses track of how long Kara's there, obsessed with marking her and kissing her and nuzzling her and tasting her, but she's definitely more than a little wet by the time Kara lifts her head and decides it's finally time to move on.

"Is it okay if I take off your shorts?" she asks, already pushing her fingers inside the waistband and teasing them down a bit.

Lena thinks about how thick Kara's fingers are again, how they're snugged inside her shorts, how Kara sucked them one-by-one in the car--and she can barely breathe as she says, "Yeah, course you can."

Kara drags her shorts down so slowly that her breathing is straggled, so shaky just from feeling Kara's eyes on her. She doesn't even need to see how Kara's looking at her for the heat to turn up in her belly, intense and insistent, so present it feels like she's pulsing.

"D'you see how pretty you are?" Kara asks, once she's got Lena's shorts down mid-thigh, exposing enough Lena's essentially naked from the belly down.

She takes a finger and presses it into the flushed skin of Lena's belly, and then she drags it down, leaving a white trail wherever her finger goes, where the blush parts for her. "Look so good for me already, and we haven't even started yet."

Lena would normally feel self-conscious like this, normally want to hide herself. But with Kara it's like she wants to be on display, wants to be pretty for her, knows Kara will appreciate it.

She likes it when Kara slides her shorts fully off and tosses them on the floor, she likes it when Kara spreads her legs and bites her lip as she looks at Lena.

She just - she feels pleasantly warm all over, good safe comfortable, soaking everything in like a flower soaks in sunlight, eager for care and attention and Kara's giving them to her.

Kara's kneading her fingers against Lena's thighs and staring at her like she's the greatest being to ever grace this planet. Kara's leaning down and kissing Lena's knee and then slowly trailing up until she's sucking a bruise right on the inside of Lena's upper thigh. 

It stings and it's lingering and it's definitely going to chafe against her shorts and pants for the next few days, but something about that excites her.

She can feel how wet she is now, can feel it against the air, can feel how slick she is when she rolls her hips slowly. So she arches her back a little, just enough to let Kara know, to make sure she knows she wants her, and it gets Kara to huff a laugh against her thigh.

"Don't worry, baby. I'm getting there," she says, still littering Lena's leg with little kisses and bites, but she does lift a hand and cups it against Lena, presses in until Lena's shuddering and grinding up against it.

"You think you'd want fingers today?" Kara asks, like she's read Lena's mind. Lena's breathing is already at the point where her voice would be nothing but husky if she speaks, so she nods her head instead, still rubbing herself against Kara's palm.

And then Kara says, "Always saying how big my hands are, so my fingers gonna fill you up, nice and thick, so good for my baby."

And Lena - it's like a thousand things happen at once: her heart flutters, and her knees tremble, and she's pretty sure she gets infinitely wetter because she's suddenly slicking messily against Kara's palm, and.

Most, most notably--her brain fucking stops.

It's like, all she can do is feel. All she can do is listen to Kara's voice and shift against her hand and wait for instructions or whatever Kara wants to do next. And she's vaguely aware that she's lifting her hips off the bed now, straining herself to get off, and vaguely aware that Kara's stopped doing anything else and she's just watching her, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because she feels so good.

"You wanna get yourself off, baby? You like doing that," Kara says, the last part not even a question, because it's like she just knows. "You wanna do it with my fingers inside you?"

Fuck, Lena nods her head, wants it so bad she'd beg for it--maybe she is begging for it, since there're words coming out of her mouth, but she can't actually tell what they are because Kara's slipping her middle finger inside of Lena.

Kara's slipping her finger in--so slow, so hot, so amazing--all the way up to Lena's ring, and Lena doesn't know exactly why that makes her heart clench, why she's so flushed thinking about Kara fucking her with her ring on, but it's happening.

It's happening and she can't breathe. Really can't breathe, can't catch a breath, especially when Kara flutters her finger inside of her right against her spot, and asks, "D'you want another?"

Lena already feels so full, feels like Kara's stretching her with just one, feels like her finger is just as thick as she thought it would be. But she still nods, still want's more, still wants to be stretched enough that she feels the strain of herself trying to adjust around Kara's fingers.

And Kara gives it to her. The second finger slides in easily, and Lena just feels so full, so filled up, so good that her mind starts to drift. But before it can get too far, Kara pushes her thighs wide enough to feel the stretch, pulls Lena's attention to her as she sits up next to Lena and presses a kiss to her knee.

"Gonna get yourself off now?" she asks, curling her fingers inside Lena at the perfect angle. "I'll keep them here, just have to move. Can you do that, baby?"

Lena doesn't even have to consider it, doesn't think about it, hips already shifting from the moment Kara asked her. She lifts up slowly at first, grinding down hard for the right amount of pressure, her hand holding Kara's wrist as she rides her fingers. And there's - there's something about this.

There's something about fucking herself on Kara's fingers while Kara just watches that, fuck--Lena grinds down again, swirling her hips this time, squeezing tight when Kara rewards her by fluttering inside her--there's something about this that gets Lena heated enough that she actually feels dizzy.

There's something about this that turns Lena on more than the feelings themselves; she can't quite describe what it is, but there's a hot hot hot weight sitting low in her belly that tugs every time she thinks about the sound of Kara's voice, thinks about the fact that Kara asked her to do this, and that--fuck, it's really probably honestly the fact that she's doing this just as much to please Kara as she's doing it for herself.

She knows how pretty Kara thinks she is, knows Kara likes watching, knows that, somehow, Kara gets off on this just as much as she does, and it just makes this whole thing better.

So when Lena grinds down again and flutters her eyes open, when she sees how flushed Kara's cheeks are, how glassy her eyes are, how the blue of her irises are nearly completely drowned in the black of her pupils, how she's nibbling her lip so hard it's transitioning from red to purple, how she has her free hand in her own shorts and she looks dazed as all hell--

Lena's legs start shaking, uncontrollable and jittery. When she watches Kara slip her lip from beneath her teeth and drop her head as she shifts against her own hand, she's reduced to squirming because her legs won't cooperate, heat rolling through her in waves so intense it almost feels like she's floating.

Then she feels Kara lift her thumb and start circling over Lena's clit as she squirms against it, and it's probably only twenty seconds before Lena comes.

God, she comes. She comes hard enough she loses her head for a moment, eyes squeezed so tight she's seeing stars, comes hard enough it feels like her chest keeps forcing out air so she can't breathe.

She keeps clenching hard around Kara's fingers inside of her, jerking away from her touching her clit because it's all so suddenly so fucking much, too much. It feels like if Kara keeps touching her, she'll keep going, and however good she feels, she doesn't know if she wants that.

She's just.

"It's okay, baby," Kara says, petting her thigh gently, kissing her knee, nuzzling against her sweaty skin. "Did so good. You're so pretty, you know? Prettiest girl in the whole universe. Do you know how lucky I am?"

Lena doesn't - she can't - there's just--there's so much going through her head right now, she can't focus. "Kara," she says, which mostly comes out as a whine as she mindlessly grips her hands in the sheets.

In one swift move, it feels like, Kara's instantly cuddled up next to her. Kissing her face and lips and neck and holding her close close close. "I'm here. It's okay. I'm right here."

"Babe, I need," Lena cuts off, shaking her head, finally starting to blink some of the haze away. After another minute she starts to feel a bit more like herself, and after another she feels like she can talk, but there's almost like, a bashful feeling curling in her belly.

Which is weird because she felt just fine getting herself off on Kara's fingers while she was doing it.

"That felt like," she starts. "I think like, it felt so good I feel shy now."

"Aw, baby," Kara laughs, pressing her forehead against Lena's and pulling the covers over them. "Well, actually like. Yeah, I get that. Don't think I've come that hard in like, ever maybe."

"You what?" Lena asks, confused and a little upset--not that like, Kara came, but that she did it on her own again and Lena wouldn't mind getting to touch her sometime. "You did?"

"Yeah, of course," Kara chirps, like she's happy and content and proud? "You're like - you're so good, so easy with you."

Lena didn't even do anything, but if Kara's happy, she's happy. "Perfect, then," she says, cuddling in closer. "You wanna sleep?"

Kara kisses her ear and sighs. "Already beating you to it."

The video ends up getting a lot of attention, like popular enough to have over 500k views after just three days of being posted--and it's legitimately Lena's worst nightmare.

Especially considering the entire comment section is about her, and the frisbee team is absolutely having a field day with it.

"No, no this is the best," Sam laughs, holding the phone close to her face as the team laughs along with her before she even says anything. Then she reads off a comment - "It says: Lena's face watching Kara lick cream off her fingers is my new sexuality, and then there's a tongue emoji and--"

"Give me that," Lena snatches her phone away and then glares at the team. "Savages, all of you," she says. "Bunch of fucking savages."

"No, no," Alex chimes in on the other side of the group, holding up her own phone. "The best one is this: After about five minutes, I wasn't sure anymore if I was watching an eating challenge or the intro to softcore lesbian porn. The sequel to Big Sausage Pizza = Big Creamy Donu--"

"Oh my god," Lena gasp-yelps, and Kara has to restrain her from murdering Alex, because Alex is normally the sensible one.

She's definitely going to have Kara put Nair in her shampoo at some point. 

"It's okay, sweetheart," Kara says, and then she glares at Alex, and Alex giggles then glares at the team, and everyone disperses to leave them alone. "None of the comments are bad, okay? I read through them all, everyone just thinks you're attractive. I swear."

Lena frowns, and. Okay, she knows that, somewhere deep down.

But, even though she knows the comments aren't really that bad and are actually pretty funny, she just - doesn't do well with so much attention. Which isn't really a real reason to lash out, especially not at her team.

Fine, she's calm now.

"But if there was a bad comment, you'd delete it, right?" she asks, resting her head against Kara's shoulder, relaxing a bit. "You'd delete it so I never have to see it?"

"Of course, baby," Kara says, massaging her fingers over her back. "Would never let you see that, don't deserve it anyway. You're perfect and anyone that says otherwise is just an asshole."

"Fine," Lena says, feeling a smile tugging on. Only Kara could say that sentence and sound like she believes it wholeheartedly. "I'll apologize to everyone for calling them savages."

Kara laughs, swaying them and slipping her leg between Lena's. "You don't have to. They know what they are, and they're proud of it. 'M pretty sure they took it as a compliment, to be honest. You wanna frisbee now?"

Lena nods her head. "Yeah, let's frisbee now."

"This is me last lab," Kara says, dangling her manual by the edge like it's contaminated. Lena approves. She hates it too, since it takes five precious hours out of their weeks when they could be cuddling or having sex or something. "Final's in a couple weeks, I say we burn it."

"Not letting you near fire," Lena says, patting Kara's chest. "Can't risk it with your track-record. We've had to impromptu use the fume hood way too many times for you to be trustworthy."

Kara frowns. "Just because I have an affinity for mixing chemicals I shouldn't, doesn't mean I can't work an open flame."

Lena considers that, then decides, "That's exactly what that means, actually." Then she taps the lab counter and slides her goggles over her eyes. "We gonna get started or no? Thought you wanted to catch that movie later."

"Yeah, of course," Kara says, but keeps her goggles firmly on her forehead. She's fiddling with her lab manual now, twirling it in her big hands. "So you know the frisbee team paintballing thing is coming up, right? It's like a whole day-trip and stuff."

"Yep," Lena nods. She knows it's coming up, but she's not particularly excited about it--barely trusted those hooligans with fakes lasers; paintballs actually hurt.

"I was thinking we could do our own thing, take our own day trip instead of joining the paintball one," Kara says, both eyebrows raised.

Lena lifts her goggles off her face, infinitely more interested. "Oh yeah? You have something planned, or?"

"Yeah, I have, like--I already have it figured out," Kara says happily, hands folding her lab manual pretty much in half. "But I want it to be a surprise, if that's okay?"

"Not gonna sneak me off and off me?" Lena asks, giggling. "I have a tendency to fight back."

Kara snorts, rolling her eyes. "I'm trying to be romantic, baby. No jokes about offing you, please."

Oh, serious date then. "Of course I'm fine with surprises," Lena says, stepping over and burying her face in Kara's chest until Kara hugs her. "And you're cute when you're romantic, so sorry for nearly ruining the mood, continue."

"You could never ruin the mood," Kara assures her, massaging her knuckles down the center of Lena's back. "And I'll get everything sorted out and pack what we need. You just have to wear something sorta nice, and enjoy yourself. Okay?"

Lena smiles. "Sounds good, I'm great at both of those things."

On the day of their surprise date, Kara comes over early in the morning. She's wearing slacks and a button down and a nice cardigan, and most importantly, she's carrying a Cinnabon bag.

"That's for me, yes?" Lena asks, already grabbing the bag from Kara's hands. She pulls a large cinnamon roll from it, licks around the edges for excess icing, and then takes a big bite. Kara just smiles at her, eyes glimmering.

"We actually have to hurry," she says after a second. "Don't mean to rush, but we're on a schedule and it's a long drive."

"Oh mmkay," Lena says, muffled. She hasn't even gotten dressed yet, since she still doesn't know what the surprise is, and wanted to get a feel for what Kara's wearing to know what sorta nice means. "I'll throw something on, and we're good?"

"Yep," Kara smiles. "All you need is yourself, I swear. You're gonna love this. I hope."

"I will," Lena promises, because she honestly doesn't need to know what it is to trust it's going to be amazing.

After all, it's Kara.

The drive is longer than Lena expected, 3.25 hours when Kara pulls it up on Waze, but they spend the first hour of it chatting happily, Kara fiddling with Lena's fingers and generally being cute.

And then, when they run out of things to talk about, they settle into a mostly comfortable silence.

That's when Kara decides to click through her playlist and start one up of a woman singing. Lena's never heard her before, but she's got quite a lovely voice, and--

"Wait, Kara. Is this you?"

"Yeah, I," Kara stutters, flushing and gripping Lena's hand tighter. "Should I turn it off? Sorry. It seemed like - you said you liked my singing at the, um. When we went on our first date. So I recorded some stuff, if that's okay?"

"No this is amazing," Lena says, turning and aiming her smile out the window, watching the fields drift by as Kara's voice fills the car.

Most of the songs on the playlists are covers, mostly stuff Lena listens to. There's all the songs Kara sang in her set that night, but even better here with professional mixing. Kara's obviously put a lot of energy into reworking them for her voice and range, had more time to perfect them than she did with one day's notice. Then there're songs Kara's into, and her voice really shines when she's singing something familiar, singing the songs she loves herself. Lena thinks she likes those even more, likes the covers of the songs she's never heard even over the one's of Sam Smith and Beyoncé.

And then there's a song that makes Kara really fidgety once it starts playing. Lena pretends she's sending an email, but quickly Googles the lyrics, and realizes it's probably because it's something Kara wrote herself.

"This one's really good," Lena comments, shoving her phone between her thighs. "My favorite one so far, who's it originally by?"

"Really?" Kara blushes, eyes hyper-focused on the road. "It's something that, something I wrote myself a while ago. I play piano, and sometimes I, you know. I've never actually like, let anyone listen to it."

Lena listens for another few seconds, nibbling her lip and soaking it in, then decides, "I love it, want it on my phone too."

"D'you think you'd listen to it often?" Kara asks. "Is it - do you just want it on your phone to be nice? It's okay if you don't like it, just. I just made this - this playlist was a dumb idea, wasn't it?"

She tries to move her hand away, like she wants to change it completely, but Lena just holds on, keeps it firmly in her lap and links their fingers together.

"I like it, pretty chill," she says. "Mellow. I'd probably listen while I was doing work, analyses and stuff. Or maybe while I'm baking, you know? It's nice to have on in the background, like good to listen to but not too overwhelming. Your voice is very lovely."

Kara actually lets her fingers relax, running her thumb over Lena's knuckles. "I'll put it on your phone later, then. Could give you the whole playlist if you want?"

"Of course," Lena smiles. "Probably won't listen to anything else the whole summer. Already the best date ever."

"Yeah, just wait until you see the surprise," Kara says.

As it turns out, it really is the best date ever. Kara parks them outside a research facility, a fancy glass building with lots of colors and structures inside, and Lena can't quite place why it looks so familiar, until they walk inside and see the posters for a talk happening in half-an-hour.

"David Vignali?" Lena asks, incredulous. "This is - we can't - I tried everything to get tickets to this talk," she says. "It's like, invite only, Kara. You know that, right? We can't just walk in here. He's announcing his new research, and - Kara, why're we still walking?"

Lena stops in the middle of the hallway, already making eye-contact with the guards outside the door to the auditorium. Once Kara realizes she's not walking anymore, she finally stops and turns around herself, walks back to Lena. "Why're we stopping?"

"Why aren't we stopping?" Lena asks. "We can't go in there, it's invite only. He's announcing something really big."

"I know," Kara says casually, nonchalant, like she's not trying to crash the talk of the greatest physicist of the modern world. "We have an invite."

Lena, she - what? "Care to explain?"

"Oh, yah. So, I was reading some of your research," Kara starts, "and I noticed you cited this guy a lot. So I Googled him and saw he was giving a talk. But it was only like, certain big name scientists and select reporters."

"Yes," Lena says, nodding slowly. "So how are we getting in?"

"I interned for Cat Grant for two years in high school for this program CatCo had," Kara explains, and then she actually pulls out two legitimate passes for the talk from her backpack. "She got us in as reporters, even got us an interview. Said if I write a crap article, I should lose her personal email, though."

Lena actually can't breathe right now. "We're interviewing David Vignali?"

"No," Kara smiles, "you are. I brought my camera, gonna pose as a photojournalist and just take loads of pics."

This has probably been one of the craziest days of Lena Luthor's life. As much as she psyched herself up during the talk, there was no conceivable way to prepare for how her interview with David went.

"He said he'd heard of my work," Lena says, for probably the thirty-seventh time, hands on her cheeks like she can't contain herself. "He said he thought it was good and that he'd be interested in a collaboration."

"Yeah, that's so crazy," Kara says, just as enthusiastic as she was the first time Lena said it to her. "I was like, shaking for you. Got so many good pictures, though, if you wanna change your pro-pic or something."

Lena takes in a deep, deep breath and drinks some of her milkshake. They stopped at Big Belly Burger before making the drive home, but wow. "I can't believe that just happened. And he's so innovative."

"Yeah, like--it took me a while to get his work, but once I did I thought it was fascinating," Kara nods. She shoves a handful of fries in her mouth before she adds, "I even wrote questions for you, by the way. In case you didn't know what to say. But you were awesome, way better than I would've been."

Kara's eyes crinkle at the corner, she's smiling so hard. She's so proud, and radiant and beautiful and Lena's. She gave up paintball, which she's probably a badass at, just to do this for Lena.

"You're amazing," Lena says. "This was amazing. This was better than anything I could have imagined. So you read my research?"

"I tried my best," Kara laughs, bashful like Lena's going to give her a pop quiz. "It seemed important to you, so was something I wanted to know about."

She says it so casually, like it's no big deal, like that's just something someone does, and it's not. It's something Kara does. She's so sweet and lovely. "I want to go home and cuddle you now," Lena decides. "We haven't touched enough today."

"Could always sit in my lap while I finish off this food," Kara says, waggling an eyebrow. "Never opposed to you being in my lap, sweetheart."

Lena doesn't end up sitting in her lap, but she does crawl to the other side of the booth and cuddles up next to Kara. And then they just sit in silence for a bit, Kara eating a burger and running her hand along Lena's stomach, Lena emailing her mentor about what happened today.

And it all just feels so natural, so easy for Lena.

She could probably get used to this, could definitely, definitely get used to this.

Kara curls up small against Lena's chest once they're snuggled in bed, which is usually her way of indicating she wants to be the little spoon. So Lena flips her over and presses herself against her back. Trails her hands along Kara's arms and her waist and her belly and, actually--  

This wouldn't be a terrible position for sex; she could touch Kara just like this, perfect access to everything. She could finally get her off instead of the other way around, maybe return the favor for once.

It's just that, it's been a few times now where Lena's watched Kara get herself off without helping, and she's honestly starting to feel a bit guilty about it.

And it's not that she doesn't want to help or anything like that. She always wants to return the favor when Kara makes her come, spread her out and finally get her hands on her, but Kara always beats her to it.

It doesn't seem like a big deal, an issue, things are going fine--Kara always seems to enjoy herself, never complains, always wants to do it again, but Lena's more than ready to jump in and get her hands wet. So to speak. And this seems like the perfect position to do it.

"Playoffs are starting soon," Kara's saying, yawning between words and snuggling closer to Lena. "I think we're in a really good position this year, and it's great that we have you. You've been playing amazing, honestly. Not just saying as your girlfriend."

Which is fine and validating and lovely, but Lena wants her hand in Kara's pants.

She doesn't exactly know how to ask, isn't as good as Kara with the talking thing, so she just wiggles her fingers beneath the waistband of Kara's shorts just as she's saying, "You could even be a starter, on track with some of our--oh hey, watcha doing there?"

"I want to touch you?" Lena says, not sure why that came out like a question. "I - you always do it yourself, never get the chance, so. You don't even have to move, could do it like this. And we can sleep."

Kara shifts likes she's going to turn around, but Lena holds her in place. Then Kara's just - she's quiet for a really long few seconds, before she says, "Don't have to, baby. You always make it so easy for me, don't need to--"

"I want to," Lena interrupts, before Kara sweet talks her into letting Kara eat her out instead or something. "I want to if you want me to."

She can already feel Kara's hips pressing back against her, slow and squirmy, different than how it felt when she was just snuggling in. "Course I want you to, I - you could - but you don't have to, honest."

Actions are probably louder than words with Kara and she's already said it's okay, so Lena pushes her hand all the way inside her shorts and just cups it against her.

Kara tenses immediately and pushes into Lena's hand, moaning like she can't help it.

"Just let me," Lena says, pressing a kiss to Kara's shoulder. "I really want to, I swear. I've wanted to for a while now."

Kara parts her legs a bit and Lena doesn't miss the opportunity to slip a finger between her folds, to feel how wet Kara already is. "'M sorry, baby," Kara mumbles. "Should have asked, wasn't thinking."

"I mean, I could've said," Lena says, pressing her finger in further, drifting until she finds Kara's hole and dips in a little. Kara actually gasps into the pillow. "Truth is, I kind of liked watching you. Watching you touch yourself. But that's not fair, I don't think."

When Kara doesn't respond after a few seconds, Lena figures it's time to pick things up. She pulls her finger out a bit, circling it in Kara's wetness, and then drags it up until she snags the bulge of her clit.

"Baby," Kara breathes, like it's an automatic reaction. "Wanted you so much, waited so long for this."

Which probably means Lena's on the right track, she thinks. So she starts rubbing circles over Kara's clit, soft at first, increasing the pressure until Kara's shifting with her fingers and breathing hard against the pillow.

She kind of gets it--gets what Kara likes about watching Lena. Because, right now, watching Kara blush, watching her pant wetly against the pillow with her mouth open, watching her biceps twitch as she squeezes the sheets, watching her little crinkle pop up when her legs start shaking--it's everything.

"S'close," Kara mumbles, shifting her hips a bit more erratically. Lena's sort of losing her rhythm, can't keep it even with Kara moving so much, but she figures at this point she just needs to be touching her.

At this point Kara just needs the contact because she's already shaking and tipping her head back.

So Lena keeps going, keeps going through Kara's orgasm, keeps going until Kara's gripping tight at her wrist and shoving her hand away like it's offensive.

"Sorry," Lena says right away, kissing the back of her ear. "Just wanted make sure you're done."

"I'm done," Kara confirms. "That was good, you're so good. I can - if you want, I can--"

"No," Lena says. "It's fine, always the morning. You did a lot of driving today, you deserve to get some sleep."

"Okay," Kara says, like she's already drifting off. "The morning, then."

"That's fine," Lena laughs, kissing her shoulder one last time. Then she snuggles in herself and drifts off.

Their first playoff game is a disaster right from the start. One of the starters hurts her ankle early on, and somehow it's decided that Lena's one of the next best players to go on the field.

Except she didn't actually expect to play, not at this level at least. Everything is more serious, everyone is better, and everything is tense. She's never let a game get to her, but each time she gets a catch blocked or can't get off a throw or can't get open, it builds up.

It builds up until it feels just like her second practice, where she felt defeated and small and incapable, and--it's honestly true, since she's obviously the shittiest player on the field at this point.

So there's this like, icky, feeling that starts low in her gut but creeps up higher in her chest every time Alex frowns or Kara rolls her eyes or someone else does something that looks mildly frustrated.

And it doesn't matter if they're not all directed at Lena, because she still feels she's the whole reason they're five points down well into the second quarter. It's just - she just keeps messing up in bad ways, and each time she does it gets harder to think straight.

It's not good when she forgets to start the stall count and the opposing team gets an extra few seconds to think and breathe and throw a scoring pass.

It gets bad when she doesn't hear Kara call out a catch and she accidentally hits her and makes her fumble it.

It gets even worse when so many of her throws get blocked that Alex tells her to just run through and don't pick up fumbles anymore.

But the worst, worst part happens when Lena fumbles an easy catch right inside the goal line, when Kara looks at her and actually looks disappointed for the first time in their relationship, and then the whole team exits the field with their heads down for the half-time break.

And Lena knows, she just knows, she's letting them down; she's letting everyone down.

She doesn't even bother to join the half-time huddle, just sits crosslegged on the ground with her face in her hands, wishes she could run away but knows she can't, knows the second she leaves that Kara will follow and the team needs Kara to win the game. So Lena just has to suck it up.

"Hey, come with me," she hears after a few minutes, and feels Kara's familiar hands on her sides, hoisting her up from the ground.

She lets Kara lead her towards the bathrooms without saying anything, lets her hold her hand and walk them slowly and nudge against her occasionally while they're on their way.

By the time Kara locks them in a bathroom stall and shoves Lena's back against the wall, Lena's blurry-eyed with teardrops clumped on her eyelashes threatening to spill down her cheek.

She's mostly prepared to have to defend herself and her shit playing and avoid making eye contact and cry cry cry.

She's not prepared for Kara to tangle her hand in her sweat-damp hair, tilt her head back against the cold plastic of the stall-wall, and kiss her.

It takes a bit for Lena to adjust; she spends a few seconds letting Kara press wet kisses against her mouth, letting her nip her lips a little.

But then she snaps into it when Kara slips a hand under her shirt and grips hot at her hip. Lena opens her mouth without even registering she's doing it. And Kara presses their faces together and sticks her tongue inside, softly brushing against Lena's own tongue and moving almost too gently for how hard she's breathing.

Lena still feels shitty, still feels overwhelmed, still can't stop her tears from actually rolling down her cheeks. But she presses in and kisses Kara hard, tangles her fingers in her jersey and tugs her so she's close. Holds her until it's too hot between them, until Kara breaks away from her mouth and kisses every tear drop on her face, until they're both a mix of sweat and tears and dirt and saliva and neither one of them can breathe.

When Kara finally manages to detangle herself and take a step back, her lips are bright red and she's flushed as all hell, but her eyes are concerned enough to make Lena feel like her knees might give out.

"It's okay," Kara starts, tucking her fingers in the waistband of Lena's shorts and sending tingles through her belly. "Everyone has a bad start or a bad game from time-to-time. Even me. So don't beat yourself up about it, alright?"

"Yeah, alright," Lena says, dropping her eyes from how expressive Kara's face is. 

But Kara presses in, nuzzles her nose against Lena's face until Lena lifts her head again for another kiss. It's soft and wet and makes heat curl low in Lena's gut since Kara's fingers are still in her shorts... and then she's right back to looking into Kara's eyes.

"I mean it, babe. You're doing fine, we still have plenty of time to bring this around. No worries."

"Yeah, you're right. I got this," she tries, hoping Kara will just kiss her again, and she can maybe dissociate from how shit she feels or something.

But she doesn't get a kiss this time, all she gets is the crinkle on Kara's forehead. "I'm being serious, okay? You're one of our best players, I swear. You had an off half, but that's said and done. Just play like I know you can."

"I just feel like I'm letting the whole team down and I'm letting you down," Lena says, more vulnerable than she wants to be, even though she was just crying, even though this is just a dumb sport and it doesn't mean anything. She shouldn't care this much.

"Babe, baby, I'm right here," Kara says, tugging the waistband of her shorts forward, so Lena falls into her. "I'm right in front of you and I'm telling you you're great. You're not letting anyone down, okay? I'm just saying I know you got this."

"Yeah, I'll be better," Lena says, tucking her head against Kara's chest.

"That's not what I'm asking. You're already great," Kara whispers, mouth pressed against her hair. "Just want you to remember that."

"Okay," Lena says. "Okay, I can do that."

Except Lena doesn't remember that, can't do that. Or maybe she isn't actually that great, because she fumbles another score pass and they end up taking their first time out six minutes into the third quarter, down by four at this point and struggling.

Alex talks strategy for a bit in the huddle, tries to reason around why things are going to shit.

But then Kara throws her head back like she's exasperated and yells out, "Crap, can we just catch the damn frisbee, it's not that freaking hard? We've fumbled so many points out there tonight because we're playing like complete trash." And Lena shrivels into herself, because she knows for a fact two missed points were her fumbling easy catches. "We're literally playing like we've never had a practice before, and I know we're a hell of a lot better than that. I'm not happy with the garbage I'm seeing out there, today. Are you happy with yourselves?"

There's a rumble of shuffling and head shaking, everyone staring down at their feet and Lena's heart sinking into the ground. But Kara only gets firmer.

"I've seen so much better from you. Did we come this far just to shit things up at the end of it? Are we really going to repeat last year? No. We're going to go out there and win this game, ladies. You have it in you," she claps, loud. "I've seen it in you, I know you got it. So stop messing around and get this done, because I know you can, alright? I believe in you, so start believing in yourselves. Now put your hands in, teamwork on three."

Lena shoves her hand in the center and feebly shouts teamwork, too ashamed to make herself noticeable. And just when she's about to jog back onto the field, without even looking at Lena, Kara points at Amy and says, "You sub in for Lena. Come on, let's go win this."

And then she jogs away.

The speech was mostly positive, Lena knows that. Kara wasn't singling her out, Lena knows that. Putting Amy in was probably the best choice, Lena knows that--especially considering they end up winning the game.

But Lena still feels like shit, still can't bring herself to look Kara in the eyes, still tries to walk home instead of getting in the jeep with Kara.

"Hey whoa, where you going?" Kara asks, running alongside her in the parking lot and grabbing her hand in a more caring way than Lena wants her to be right now.

"Just walking home," Lena mumbles, trying to hold it together. "Heard you girls saying you were going for ice cream, and I'm not really hungry."

"It's okay, I can drive you home," Kara says, ducking her head so her concerned face is in Lena's field of view. "I'd never make you walk home just to get ice cream, don't be ridiculous."

Lena's not being ridiculous, Kara's being ridiculous. And mean and demeaning and she's a liar because she convinced Lena she could do this, when she couldn't. So much for never leading her astray. "It's fine, I probably need the exercise, anyway."

"Lena, get in the car," Kara says, in her no-nonsense voice, in her captain voice, in her this is not an argument I'm entertaining voice.

So Lena gets in the car. She would've regretted walking half-way in, anyway.

Kara tries to hold her hand, once they're driving, but Lena just pulls hers away. So Kara taps her thigh a few times and then firmly attaches both her hands to the steering wheel.

"I'm so proud of you," she says, after another minute of awkward silence. "Most people let a bad half knock them down, but you got back out there and kept trying. That takes a lot. Very admirable."

Lena doesn't bother responding, there's nothing admirable about her.

After another minute, Kara tries again - "Wish you'd been playing these past couple years. You'd probably be top ranked in the country by now, with how far you've come in just one season."

Lena still doesn't say anything, and she figures Kara gives up because she's silent for the remainder of the ride.

When Lena gets out of the car to go into her apartment, she sort of prays that Kara doesn't follow her in, walk her up, take her to her door. But of course she does. And of course she blocks Lena from opening the door when she tries to go in without a goodbye.

"Don't you have to go get ice cream?" Lena asks, weakly.

Kara shakes her head slowly, concern etched so clearly on her face that Lena just refuses to look at her now. "No, the only thing I can think about is cuddling you until you feel better. You're more important to me than anything else, and I just want you to get back to being happy."

"I just need some space," Lena says softly. She wishes Kara would just back away.

But she doesn't. She never does, does she? She's so fucking persistent. "Lena, are we fighting? Did I mess up?"

"Can you just go," Lena pleads, finally looking up, voice cracking in the stupidest, dumbest, ugliest way possible that Kara absolutely notices because she notices everything with her dumb observant eyes and ears and ugh ugh ugh. "I just want. Some space. Please."

Fuck, she's being so shitty about this; Kara didn't even do anything wrong and that just makes her feel worse, but she really, really needs some space right now.

"Do you want to break up? Do you need that kind of space?"

"No," Lena says, like she's cracking. That's so dumb. No. "I just need a moment, because I'm feeling something stupid and I don't want to fuck this up, okay?"

"Okay," Kara says, rubbing her hands on her shorts like she's trying to stop them from shaking. "I can do that, but if this is something more than that, you should tell me."

"It's not. Really. It's not."

Lena blinks up at Kara's sad blue eyes mostly to convince her she's not trying to break things off, but she kind of gets stuck because--it's just.

Looking at Kara, when she looks at Kara it makes the terrible feeling she had in her chest back on the field dissipate a little, the feeling that followed her up these stairs and made her raise her voice at Kara, and she's vaguely aware that if she could just. Like. Ask for a hug, then it'd all be over and they wouldn't have to do this--

The space, and the fall out, and Lena messing this up. She could fix it now before she breaks it.

But for some reason her words won't come out to say anything useful. Ugh--no--that's a dumb thought, and counterproductive. And she's in control of her own actions, and she can say anything, and fuck fuck fuck.

"Kara--" she says, breath catching weirdly.

Kara finally steps away from the door, sucks in a long breath, and says, "I know, baby. I know."

And then suddenly she's hugging Lena, suddenly she's close and warm and familiar and she's got Lena wrapped in her arms and everything feels okay again, and Lena can breathe. She can breathe, she can--fuck. "I messed up, baby. I know," Kara mumbles against her ear. "But I'll make it better, promise. Gonna make it up to you."

Turns out make it up to you involves flowers, lots of roses and sex and Kara being snuggly. And it even involves Kara mapping out all the dark spots in their area, the spots with the least amount of city-light pollution, and them having picnics and watching the stars.

And it's probably, hands down, one of the best weeks of Lena's existence.

"So I have this rugby thing," Kara says, flicking the paper football through Lena's make-shift hand goal. They're in the library, taking a break from studying for Kara's chemistry final, and Kara's somehow being the cutest person ever and kicking Lena's ass at table-top sports.

"What sort of thing?" Lena asks, lining up the paper and flicking it. It smacks into Kara's fingers and she frowns. "Like a game?"

"Yeah," Kara says, lining her own shot up and seamlessly scoring another goal. "There's a woman -- she sponsors our team, and she's best friends with the sponsor of this other team, so every year they have us all attend this fancy dinner and do this big exhibition game. Was wondering if you'd be my date? And if you'd like, maybe wear my jersey to the game? While you cheer for me?"

Lena makes a considering noise as she lines the paper up and flicks it again, this time scoring herself. "Yeah, okay. If you pass your final, I'll even have sex with you wearing your jersey and nothing else."

Kara flashes a deep shade of red instantly, smiling wide and pretty, and then she quickly reopens her chemistry text instead of continuing their game.

"No time for messing around, then," she says, flicking to a random page and slipping her glasses back on. "Not when I've apparently got a very important test to pass."

When Kara said fancy dinner, she meant actually fancy, like she shows up in a suit instead of her dark jeans or slacks and Lena has to change out of her casual dress, for a black-lace one with see-through sleeves.

Once they make it there, Kara takes a minute to introduce Lena to everyone, getting stopped every time she tries to walk anywhere because people want to chat. But they get assigned a table about half-an-hour in, and everyone's seated so they can eat.

The actual dinner is a nice spinach and gruyere stuffed chicken breast with steamed asparagus and mashed sweet potatoes, by far one of the best things Lena's eaten since starting uni.

And, to top it off, they keep serving this fancy strawberry champagne and Lena keeps drinking glasses because it's as good as candy, and Kara keeps drinking glasses because - it's like she just doesn't let Lena do things alone, always alongside her.

She has one last glass with dessert--crème brûlée with raspberries--and is a bit past tipsy by the time she's done with her meal. 

Kara's infinitely less drunk than Lena is, somehow, since alcohol seems to affect her about as much as water does.

They chat a bit, just with the people at their table, but Lena zones out a few minutes into it, just watches Kara. She watches how her eyes sparkle, how easy she handles conversations, how she's sweet and modest yet commands so much attention, and Lena really, really likes her.

"We should dance," Lena says suddenly, finagling herself out of her chair. It takes a second for Kara to dismiss herself before she finally stands up, but that doesn't deter Lena--she just grabs Kara's hand and drags her off to the dance floor.

Once she finds them a nice spot with enough room around them, right in the center, she positions Kara's hands on her hips and throws her own arms around Kara's shoulders.

Kara slides her hands around her waist to rest on her back, pulling them close together as they sway peacefully to the music. 

"Me haces feliz. Eres la mujer de mis sueños," Kara says after a few minutes, hiding her face in Lena's hair. Maybe she actually is drunk.

Lena tightens her hands around Kara's shoulders. "Hi babe. Is there a reason we're speaking Spanish?" she asks, words lilting out of her because she can't stop smiling. "Did the champagne break you?"

"No," Kara laughs, tilting her head back, cheeks an adorable shade of pink. "My birth mom was from Spain, think English is technically not my first language."

"Oh," Lena says, and she doesn't know why, but it feels like her heart catches in her throat. "Never would have guessed it."

"Yeah, my mom had more of that brown hair, hazel eyes thing going for her," Kara explains, stretching her hands out over the small of Lena's back. "I'm sort of a genetic weirdo."

"No, you're perfect," Lena corrects her, because she is and it's very important she knows. "Wouldn't change a thing about you."

"Hey, you stop that." Kara's smile is so bright, Lena actually has to look away for a second. But Kara squeezes her waist tighter and lifts her off the floor, spinning them in a circle while exclaiming, "Cuidado mi amor, my heart can't handle when you're just as sappy as I am."

"Can't help it," Lena laughs, pressing a kiss to Kara's cheek. Kara very gracefully allows her feet to return to the floor. "The drinks are making it hard for me to play hard to get."

"Oh no, you're gonna slip up and make me think you're actually into me," Kara teases, kissing Lena again, like she can't keep away. "I meant that, by the way. You make me really happy, couldn't have found someone better."

Lena links her hands behind Kara's neck. "Yeah, same," she says, already feeling the heat on her face, and before she even knows what's happening they're kissing, hot and deep, Kara's tongue pressing into Lena's mouth in the middle of the dance floor.

"Shit," Lena exclaims, flinching as Kara gets hit again. They're barely half-way into the game, and she can already tell rugby is a shit, unsafe sport. She squeezes her nails into Sam's palm and leans her face against her shoulder. "How long does this go on for, it's like torture?"

"Hey, what are you talking about?" Sam says. "She's doing great out there, already scored three times."

"I guess," Lena frowns, peeking an eye open to check on the field, see if Kara's still moving. "But I'm pretty sure she got knocked into yesterday with that last hit. This game isn't safe and I hate it."

"Don't worry, Kara takes a hit like no one else," Sam assures her, which isn't very assuring at all. "She'll be fine."

"Fine," Lena grumbles, accepting that reluctantly. But as soon as she lifts her head she sees Kara collide faces with someone and walk away holding her lip, which. "Fuck, Sam. That's not okay. I need to go down there." 

"She's okay," Sam emphasizes, letting go of Lena's hand and wrapping an arm around her. "You need a distraction? You want me to talk? I can tell you about me and Alex."

"You and Alex?" Lena asks, attention already piqued. She reaches up to pinch her lip, purposely averting her eyes from the field. "You're a thing now?"

"Yep," Sam smiles. "I asked her out--"

"You?"

"Yes, me, okay? I had to take it into my own hands, since she was randomly more nervous than I was," Sam says, smile clear on her face and in her voice. "Anyway, we went to Topgolf, and shared a milkshake, and went to a park at midnight and made out on the roundabout." 

"I'm jealous," Lena says, slurred over her fingers. "Me and Kara need to step up our public indecency." 

"Don't worry, you're pretty indecent enough," Sam nods. "I mean, we all saw the YouTube video after all. If you two didn't sex after that, then my name isn't Samantha Arias."

"Shut up," Lena shoves her shoulder. "I'm still mad the whole world got to see our donut foreplay."

Sam snorts, chest shaking with laughter. "So we can laugh about it, now? Because I swear that was like the greatest entertainment release of the year. Who knew Lena Luthor had those sex eyes in her?"

"Stop, no," Lena groans. "You're banned again, no more talking about it."

Despite how terrible the sport is, Lena spends the rest of the game sort of acclimating to it, flinching less and less each time Kara gets hurt, and by the end she's even cheering Kara on, chanting, "Let's go, let's go, come on," as Kara weaves around defenders and scores again, winning the game.

"Holy shit," Sam says. "Holy shit, did you see that? That was so good."

But Lena can't be bothered to respond right now, because amidst all the chaos and cheering and being tackled by her teammates, Kara is undeniably smiling up at Lena and waving her onto the field. "Gotta go congratulate my girl," Lena says. "Go kiss Alex or something."

Sam laughs, shoving her shoulder as she skips off the bleachers, and then Kara snatches her into a sweaty, sweaty hug as soon as she enters the field, taking a long sip from her gatorade water bottle and nuzzling sweat against Lena's face afterwards.

"Impressed?" Kara asks, smiling in that smug way she does when she knows she's done something good--in sports, at least. "Saw you nearly biting your hand off up there."

"It was hard at first, but okay towards the end." She lifts her hand and inspects Kara's face, and there's just the one bruise on her lip. "Could have been worse, yeah?"

"Yeah, I've had much--nevermind," Kara laughs, then clears her throat awkwardly. "So um, someone, not naming names, got a 72 on her chemistry final. And that's an A after the curve, by the way. And someone else made a promise about a jersey."

Lena puts her hands around Kara's neck, giving her a quick kiss. "I suppose that's right. What do you wanna do?"

"I wanna see my name while I get you off," Kara says, casual as anything, eyes flickering in the sunlight.

Lena hums, content with that, but then - "Wait, your name's on the back of the jersey."

Kara's hand drifts from Lena's waist to hook in her belt loop, and then instead of saying anything she just kisses Lena--she kisses her long and deep and lingering right in the middle of everyone, and Lena's head is absolutely swirling. 

Right, so this is happening, Lena's getting turned on in the middle of an entire field of people.

When Kara finally pulls back, she still doesn't say anything--just smiles, because she knows, and then she throws her water bottle towards the bottle rack.

She throws Lena on her mattress an hour later (or, rather, gently sets her down), lips already reddened because she was in the bathroom kissing Lena pretty much the second she got out of the shower.

But now Lena's on the bed, wearing Kara's rugby shirt and nothing else, legs tangling in Kara's soft jersey sheets as Kara flips her on her belly and places a kiss on her neck.

"Should see yourself, baby," Kara says, tucking Lena's legs forward, so she's on her knees and elbows, back arched so her ass is slightly higher in the air. Again, she should feel self-conscious like this, but for some reason she just doesn't. "So perfect for me, just like this."

It's easy for her to slip into her usual haze, once Kara starts pressing kisses against her cheeks, sucking on bruises and grazing her blunt nails up Lena's thighs. It's just so easy for her to slip away with Kara, for her mind to turn off and her body to just feel.

So by the time she's rocking back on two of Kara's fingers, she's pretty convinced she's going to come just like that, even without having her clit touched, with Kara barely even crooking against her spot, just fucking into her.

She feels so turned on, so pretty, so on display for Kara, that it's like - it's weird but it feels like she could come just from that.

"Baby," Kara says, softly petting the bruises she left on her ass earlier, and it's a tone that Lena already knows is - she just knows Kara's going to say something vulnerable, the way she always gets when it seems she's too overwhelmed by Lena.

"You're so good for me," she whispers, like if she talks any louder her voice might break. "I feel like, like I could do this for the rest of my life and never get tired. Could spend my life making you feel nice, baby, and it'd never get old."

Fuck, that one actually makes Lena feel squirmy inside, makes her feel vulnerable and she's not even the one saying it. She presses back harder on Kara's fingers, lingering with them pressed all the way in, and circles her hips.

"You're just," Kara keeps going. "I always say you're pretty, I know. But you're so much more than that. You're smart and you're funny, and you look so intimidating but you're really the nicest--"

Fuck, Lena can't do this. "Kara," she breathes, in a way she knows will get her attention. "I need, I - I want your mouth, please? Please."

"Don't have to beg, baby," Kara says, giving her ass another pet. "Never have to, just ask. I'm here for you, to make you happy."

Jesus Christ, Lena's just wants Kara's mouth on her, so she'll stop, so Lena's heart can stop lumping in her throat, so she can feel like she can breathe again, so she can tell her eyes not to cry. She just feels too much right now, and she wants to feel a little less.

So she just takes it into her own hands, pulls off Kara fingers, and instead of asking Kara for her mouth again, she turns around and presses Kara onto her back and decides she'll go down on Kara herself.

She's never done it before, so it's immediately intimidating, but Kara looks so spaced already that Lena probably just has to breathe on her and she'll come.

Her legs flop open lazily, easy for Lena to slide between them, and then. There she is. Lena can see just how wet she is even before she reaches up and spreads Kara with her fingers, and that's really all the confidence she needs.

She leans in and uses the flat of her tongue to lick from Kara's opening, all the way to her clit. The taste is sort of different from what she thought, but it's not bad; she gets used to it quickly, keeps running her tongue over Kara's hole before she ventures to press it in.

As soon as she does, Kara's hips lift off the bed and her hands move to Lena's hair, squeezing way more gently than it seemed she originally intended to. "Baby," she whimpers, and Lena looks up just in time to see her head tilt back.

Then she reaches between her legs, while Lena's tongue is still inside her and starts rubbing her fingers over her clit, slow slow circles right in front of Lena's nose, and--it's not a bad idea, Lena thinks. She was already close herself, could probably get herself off too.

So she reaches between her own legs, fucking her tongue into Kara as she shifts against her hand, and it's an embarrassingly short time before they both come.

Kara's thighs wrap around Lena's head, both of them clenching up and breathing ragged--sweaty and dazed and (probably) too emotional, and tired. Lena didn't even do anything today, but she just feels. So tired.

She's pretty sure she falls asleep right against Kara's thigh.

Lena wakes up alone. She's confused for a few seconds, but then she hears rustling in the kitchen and relaxes. She gives it a few minutes before she officially declares herself up, and then she grabs her phone off the night stand to check her email.

She sort of regrets doing that the instant she sees Lillian Luthor's name, though.

She's gone the whole summer without hearing from her mother, so it's only fitting that she asks Lena to call her just when Lena was starting to think she couldn't possibly get any happier.

Still, her mother is her mother, so she dials her despite not wanting to.

"Hi, Lena," Lillian answers with, and then instead of waiting for a response, she just says, "I saw you have enough credits to graduate in December. Lex and I want you to help run the Research and Development sector of LuthorCorp out of Metropolis, starting in January. No use in prolonging university if you don't need it."

Which is a lot for Lena to process right this second, should've shaken her sleep off a little more before this conversation. She rubs her eyes a bit, lets the words sink in, and tries not to take too long and annoy her mother.

It doesn't really sound like a bad idea, Lena's always wanted to work at LuthorCorp, but Metropolis is literally on the other side of the country, and Lena likes being in uni right now.

She likes learning, likes the environment, likes having Sam around and even the frisbee team, and she definitely, definitely likes... ugh. 

No, she could never bring up Kara or any of that to her mother, so she goes with, "I just got the grant here, though. And I'm doing a lot of interesting research and still learning. I just thought - I thought maybe I could finish up my time here before--"

"You just figured you'd underachieve like you always do? Look, Lena, we're giving you the job at LuthorCorp because we care about family and want to provide you room to grow, but if you have better things to do, it won't be hard to find someone better." 

"I know, I just - I wasn't saying I have better things, but I just - I want--"

Honestly. She wants to tell her that she feels like she belongs here, that she's finding her stride, that she's becoming her own person, that there's so much beyond just the general classes that's helping her grow and learn.

But, if she's being honest, honest--she mostly wants to tell her mother that she met a girl. She met a girl.

A girl that makes her feel important, and makes her feel like - like it's okay to try. Even when she fails or she isn't good at something, and makes her feel like she's worth listening to and taking the time to understand, and she.

She'd never give up her dreams for someone, but finishing uni--graduating one of the top uni's in the world--in four years instead of two doesn't feel like ruining her life.

Especially when she's the youngest person publishing in her research area, and the youngest person to get this amount of grant funding for self-directed projects, and David Vignali has heard of her work, and it feels like her life is moving in the right direction even without LuthorCorp.

If she's doing all of this already, furthering her career at just eighteen, and graduating uni in a regular amount of time means she also gets to keep Kara and her friends, then she really doesn't understand why it's bad.

It just - it feels like she has a really valid argument for staying.

But she still feels like absolute, complete shit when her mother hangs up before she even gets the chance to respond.

She slinks into the kitchen ten minutes later and tries not to look as down as she feels. Which is surprisingly easy when Kara beams, then throws her arms around her and gives her a big kiss, rubbing her nose all over Lena's face ridiculously. "My baby's finally awake," she says, hugging her tight and pressing her nose into her hair.

Lena sinks into her completely and can't help her smile. "You could've stayed in bed with me, don't know why you're out here."

"I was gonna cook us something," Kara says against Lena's ear, like she's happy she had a good idea. "Figured you might be hungry when you woke up, know I am."

"Oh, I can help out, then. Now that I'm up."

Kara nuzzles her hair. "No it's fine, you can just relax. Not trying to commission you again right out of bed."

"Please, it's no big deal. Besides wouldn't want you to burn the house down." Lena leans back to give her a small smile. But she immediately backtracks when Kara frowns. "Sorry, sorry. You're perfectly capable of making dinner, and I'm perfectly capable of relaxing."

Kara sighs, dramatically, like it's some great weight off her chest. "Good, can finally treat you."

"You already do that in literally every other way," Lena says, kissing Kara's shoulder.

"Just want to take care of you in every way," Kara smiles, pulling off a bit. "Mind if we talk while I cook, really wanna get this going?"

"Yeah, of course," Lena says, and resists the urge to pull Kara back when she turns to start fiddling with the ingredients on the counter.

Which is particularly admirable for Lena, especially considering Kara's wearing an old, worn uni crewneck and her oldest soft soft softest pair of joggers. Also considering Lena just had a shit talk with her mom, which--

"So, um," she clears her throat. Kara lifts her head a bit to indicate she's listening, but otherwise preoccupied with the food. "My mother offered me this job at LuthorCorp."

"That's awesome," Kara says, and she's not even looking at Lena, but Lena can tell how truly proud she already is. Someone should probably bubblewrap Kara and preserve her innocence.

"Yeah it's my dream job, but it's in Metropolis and she wants me to start this December."

She can see Kara freeze, see her hand pause a bit before she grabs the box of macaroni, but all she says is, "That's awesome though, your dream job. And you'll have enough credits to graduate. So nothing holding you back."

Lena twists her fingers together, rolling them between each other. "Yeah, but I kind of wanted to finish out the rest of uni, you know? But when I said it, she pretty much said I was dumb for wanting that, and that a job wouldn't be waiting for me. I don't know, I feel like it's not what I want right now, but I don't want to upset her because I need her for my - my everything. My future, my research. I don't know."

Kara doesn't say anything for a second, like she's just considering that, or maybe she's just reading the macaroni box, but then she sighs a bit and says, "I don't know your mom, so not trying to sound like a knob. But when it comes to your capabilities and your brilliant mind and, hell, even the future of science, you don't need her, she needs you. And anyone who's ever spent more than five seconds with you knows that."

Oh.

Lena can feel her chest constricting like maybe her heart will stop just hearing that.

It's just, that - that feels like the most important thing anyone's ever said to Lena, something she's always wanted to hear, honestly, and Kara said it without even looking at her. Kara legitimately spoke those sentences while scrunching her face at the back of a macaroni box, as if basic pasta's a complete conundrum.

Like. Lena's having trouble breathing, and Kara's as calm as if she just stated a casual, every day fact. One that doesn't even warrant looking up from easy-mac. "You're just saying that because you're my girlfriend."

"What, no?" Kara lowers the macaroni box, finally looking at Lena, face more confused than even the pasta was making her. "Just think about it. You're doing things that no one your age has ever done before, things the government actually wants to fund, things that one guy wants to collab with you on. That's probably the reason she even called with the job, and most likely why she wants you to feel bad for not taking it right away. You have way more power than you think."

"No, I--"

"Baby." Fuck, Kara has her serious crinkle. Usually, when she has that, Lena would trust anything that comes out of her mouth, but. This. It feels like - shit, it feels like. It feels like it can't be true. She's smart, but she's not needed. She's as replaceable as Lilian said she is.

"I wouldn't build you up if I thought it was setting you up for failure," Kara continues. "Especially not in this area of your life. I just feel like you have way more leverage and power than you're affording yourself. I mean - crap, with your skillset, you're gonna get swooped up faster than hotcakes on the job market. Any legitimate business knows they don't threaten the next big thing, they woo them."

"So, what?" Lena asks, voice hovering somewhere between a challenge and a question. "Am I just supposed to call my mother and say you need me more than I need you. Do you really think that's something that would work? You don't know Lillian Luthor."

Kara shrugs. "Yeah, but I know you. Anyway, I'm not saying don't take the job, I'm just saying you can do it on your own terms."

She goes back to narrowing her eyes at the macaroni box after that, like that's that. Everything's said and done and, ugh.

Lena mulls over what she said for a moment, actually thinks it through. It feels entirely too good to be true, her having any power, but it feels like she doesn't have a lot to lose in testing that out. It's not like her mother and her have a relationship to ruin.

"Okay, yeah. You're probably right. I um, I need to use the bathroom," Lena decides. "You good to start without me?"

"Yeah, of course," Kara smiles. "And I already told you, you're not even helping. Go do something more important, make yourself scarce, I got this."

Lena sits on the closed toilet seat in the bathroom for approximately ten minutes with her face in her hands, trying to breathe properly, trying to get the dreadful, awful feeling out her chest that her mother put there, trying to wrap her mind around what Kara said, and.

Her mother doesn't bluff, she's never done that before. And she never loses, and Lena's learned to never go up against her.

But Kara's also never lead her astray.

So Lena goes for it, calls her mother back, and after a smug few seconds of her mother asking if she came to her senses, she lays it on her--

She talks about her accomplishments and the grant and everything great that she's been doing, and all the reasons she has to feel good about herself and not like shit, and everything she has to offer.

And then she finishes with, "So I think I'm doing pretty okay, myself, and I'd love to work for LuthorCorp in the future. But if you want to pull the opportunity from me for trying to learn and grow, then I could just take my research and become your competition instead."

A few seconds pass, followed by a soft huff, and then her mother says, "Fine, if you wish to waste your time staying in university, that's your prerogative." But there's a pause after she says it, a tentative one, more tentative than Lena's ever heard her mother sound before, and then, "The LuthorCorp job will still be there for you. But don't expect me to make a big deal out of your graduation when you're doing it a year and a half too late."

Then she hangs up.

Lena doesn't even know what to do with herself, like. She can't even believe that just happened. She can't even--fuck, is that - "Kara is that the smoke alarm?" she yells.

"Don't worry, babe. I'm handling it," Kara yells back.

Jesus Christ.

Lena jumps off the toilet and heads out of the room, immediately hit in the face by a wall of smoke. Before she even has time to process, Kara's shoving her shirt over her head and pulling her somewhere. "Opened the windows and turned off the stove," she says. "Gotta go, too much smoke."

"What?" Lena asks, face smashed against Kara's sweater, and then a few seconds later she hears a door shut behind them and Kara releases her. They're in the hallway outside her apartment door. "What's going on?"

"Funny story," Kara smiles, eyes pretty and shiny, watery, probably from the smoke. "So the macaroni like, it burned."

"How do you burn macaroni?" Lena huffs.

Kara shrugs her shoulders. "I don't know, it all happened so fast. The box didn't say anything about it expanding in the water. Like, one minute it was fine and then the next there was smoke coming off it and it was stuck to the pot." She shakes her head, laughing now, lovely and warm. "It freaking expanded, that's crazy right?"

I love you.

Shit.

Wait.

Lena's breath catches in her throat and her heart starts racing. She just nearly said that out loud, just nearly answered a dumb macaroni question with I love you. Why did her brain just say that? Blurted it out, easy as anything, like it's normal. Like she should feel that way. Ugh. "Everyone knows macaroni expands, how'd you miss that?"

Kara keeps giggling, but she's pinching her lip now so it's muffled and even cuter. "I guess, theoretically, it makes sense. But they don't put it on the box or anything, sort of misleading if you ask me. But we can go to the place I took you our first date, it's open 'till 4am."

Lena's still trying to catch her breath, and in love, apparently. "Yeah, sounds good, we'll need to grab clothes, though."

"Right," Kara says, pulling her shirt over her nose. "You stay here, I'm on it."

A few minutes later, they're loading into the car, Kara feeling it necessary, for some reason, to help Lena into her seat. 

She buckles her seatbelt for her and everything--slowly, like they have all the time in the world--and then she pulls that move where she drops her arms and lingers. Lena starts to giggle a bit, because it's just like Kara to make a big deal out of kissing her this far in.

But Kara doesn't kiss her this time.

Instead she sucks in a large breath and says, serious despite the smile in her eyes, "I just want you to know, even if you take the job in California this winter, that it isn't enough to get rid of me." She narrows her eyes and leans in, the tug on the corners of her mouth betraying how serious she's trying to be. "This isn't Sweet Home Alabama where you go off to get some fancy job and leave behind this small town girl."

Lena laughs, cheeks heating up faster than Kara's macaroni, both because Kara's grin is so wide and pretty, and because her heart is sputtering out beats a mile a minute. "I'll take that into consideration."

"I mean it," Kara says, finally breaking into laughter herself, eyes so sparkly they could rival the stars. "If I have to come to California to remind you of how cute I am, then I will. I'm stuck on you, Lena Luthor, and I can be very persistent when I want something." 

I love you I love you I love you I love you. 

It's drumming through Lena's head like a heartbeat at this point. And it's all she can do not to say it out loud. It's in her chest and her eyes and every breath she exhales, seeping through her so thoroughly she's scared Kara might read it on her skin. So she just doesn't talk for a few seconds, because she knows the first thing that'll come out is that. And she doesn't know if it's weird or too soon, or if it'll push Kara away, or--

Fuck it. "I love you," Lena says.

And Kara says, "I love you, too," so fast it's like it wasn't even a thought but a reflex.

There's a few seconds afterwards where they just blink at each other, dumb and in silence and in love, and then Kara kisses Lena. She kisses Lena in that way that only Kara knows how.

Then she takes her to get grilled mac and cheeses and sings her lovely songs.