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Kara balanced a stack of pizza boxes precariously on one hand as she unlocked the door to Lena’s apartment and gently pushed it open. She had her own key to Lena’s place, a fact she still hasn’t entirely gotten over. Sure, Lena had tried to play it cool at the time, had joked that Kara would probably want to come watch new episodes of the shows she was following on Lena’s large screen TV (which, okay, true, but a low-blow). But Kara knew her friend. Maybe—maybe better than she knew anyone else, aside from Alex. And so she knew that keys to the penthouse were a big deal, a step into Lena’s private life that hadn’t been offered to anyone else.
(Of course, Kara had given Lena the last set of spare keys to her own apartment the very next day. Had held Lena close and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead while Lena assured Kara, unprompted and with a shaking voice, that she had never received such an important gift before and she would never betray Kara’s trust.
Supergirl’s boots had been left kicked off under the coffee table, and a royal blue sleeve poked out from beneath a blanket on the couch. But between the two of them, Kara had never worried about trust.)
Kara stepped delicately into Lena’s apartment, closing the door behind her and padding into the kitchen on her tiptoes. More than once, she'd come in to the sight of Lena already asleep at just after seven—passed out on the couch or at her home office desk. Kara set the pizza boxes down on the counter and followed the sound of an old Star Trek episode into the living room, kicking off her shoes along the way.
She stopped briefly at the edge of the room, watching with a smile as Lena offered a frustrated sigh to the tablet perched on her lap. Complications with L-Corp’s newest acquisition, is what Lena had taken to telling other people. Truth was, Kara knew, she’d found a new puzzle game she’d yet to master.
She let her next step fall just a bit louder, so Lena wouldn’t startle. Sure enough, she turned her head lazily in Kara’s direction, any game-related annoyance easily overtaken by the warm smile that spread on her face as she watched Kara walk over to her side of the couch. “Hey, you,” Lena said.
“Hey, yourself,” Kara parroted, stepping directly in front of Lena. Close. And incidentally completely blocking Lena’s view of the TV, although she hardly seemed to notice, dropping the tablet on the couch beside her and staring up at Kara with a teasing, raised eyebrow. Kara bent forward and wrapped Lena’s hand between her own. “I brought pizza,” she said, and gave Lena’s arm a light tug. “But I want you first.”
It was a newer thing between them, this—this ‘arrangement’, as Lena liked to call it. Kara was half-surprised she hadn’t been asked to sign paperwork when it all began, with how professionally Lena had treated the whole thing. ‘The whole thing’ being sex. The two of them having sex. With each other. Frequently.
But it wasn’t, like, a dating thing. Technically, it wasn’t even an exclusive thing.
(At least, that was the deal. Kara certainly wasn’t seeing anyone else. If she were being honest, she knew Lena wasn’t, either.)
It’s just! It’s just that there’s been a lot going on lately, for both of them. Betrayals, breakups, an overwhelming amount of loss, and a nasty case of Daxamite invasion had really taken the wind from their sails, so to speak. Left them drained and tense. Stressed.
And after one unusually silent night in Kara’s apartment, the stress just. Boiled over. As it does. Boiled over, and left the two of them together on the couch, with Kara pinning Lena down as she pumped her fingers into her and left a trail of small bruises along her neck. It didn’t mean anything. “This doesn’t mean anything,” Lena had even said, and Kara had just nodded along helplessly, only half-focused on their ongoing conversation as Lena traced quick, tight circles around her clit.
“Kara, you’re wonderful. I mean it,” Lena had said once they were semi-uncomfortably attempting to compose themselves, zipping their pants and gathering their shirts from where they’d been abandoned on the coffee table. “And—and maybe we can talk about things between us later. But it’s just—it’s too soon.”
And, truly, Kara had agreed. It was too soon. Rao, was it too soon. Lena hadn’t even gotten a chance to begin recovering from Jack’s death before Rhea had lured her in, dangling false affection just in front of her face if Lena would just go along with her plans. And Kara—her grief was suffocating, cold and heavy around her neck where her mother’s necklace had once rested.
It was too soon for anything serious between them.
But they could still have this.
“Kara!” Lena teased, letting Kara pull her from the couch so that they stood chest to chest. “You didn’t tell me it was going to be one of those nights.”
Immediately, Kara dipped her head to Lena’s neck, placed a chaste kiss to a sensitive spot just beneath her ear. “Didn’t know ‘til I got here. Saw you.” She left a few kisses along Lena’s jawline, nipped a line down her neck.
“Don’t tease,” Lena said, although she tipped her head to the side and gasped softly when Kara finally chose a spot to focus more intently on. “I—I’m a little underdressed…” Referring, of course, to the faded, old hoodie—Kara’s—hanging loose from her shoulders and not at all matching her baggy sweatpants and fuzzy socks.
Kara bit down at the base of Lena’s neck for that comment, but gently. Always gentle, since she was still learning the limits of what Lena could take. Leaving a conciliatory kiss to the skin she’d bitten, Kara raised her head to look in Lena’s eyes and whispered, “You look perfect.”
Lena bit her lip to conceal her smile, her cheeks flushed a pretty shade of pink. “You know, you don’t need to use lines to get laid tonight, Kara,” she said, although the soft, pleased tone of her voice betrayed her.
“You do. Look perfect, I mean,” Kara smiled, leaning her head forward to lightly bump against Lena’s. It was one of her favorite things, she’d learned, just being close to Lena like this. Close enough to see the faint freckles scattered here and there across her cheeks, to feel Lena’s breath warm against her lips.
(Close enough that Kara could just—she could just lean right in and kiss her. She’s thought about kissing Lena, a bit. A lot. And... and there’d never been a rule, exactly, about kissing. Or not kissing, specifically. It was more just a… mutual understanding, between the two, something they’d naturally avoided.
But that hasn’t stopped Kara from thinking about it. About how soft Lena’s lips would feel against her own, about the darkened stain she’d leave on Kara’s mouth from her lipstick, about the noises she might make when Kara licked into her mouth, touched Lena’s tongue with her own.
She’s spent a lot of time imagining it.)
Kara brought Lena’s arms up to wrap around her shoulders, and dropped her own hands to squeeze playfully at Lena’s ass before picking her up in one quick motion. Lena yelped, clinging to the back of Kara’s shirt and clamping her legs around her hips. Squirming indignantly in Kara’s arms as if there were any chance she would ever actually drop her.
“Kara! You have to warn me before you do that!” Lena’s tone was clearly trying for ‘serious and admonishing’. That is, when she was able to speak through her laughter at all.
“Whoops, my bad!” Kara said—unrepentant, smiling, and lifting Lena up higher so she could continue kissing at her throat while she carried her into the bedroom. They’d done this a few times before—most commonly holding hands and giggling at one of Kara's terrible (but always successful!) pickup lines as they made their way into Lena’s room—enough times that Kara didn’t have to watch where she walked. Instead, she focused her attention on Lena, pulling her close, sucking a bruise into the side of her neck, helping her roll her hips against Kara’s stomach.
(“Darn it,” Kara swore, blindly grabbing at the doorknob behind her. Trying not to rip it off entirely. “Lena! Why’d you even close your door?”
Lena laughed, her breath a warm rush against Kara’s ear that strangely reminded her of floating. “I’m sorry, Supergirl, I thought we were in the middle of our Star Trek marathon. Now bend down and let me, before you punch a hole in the door.”)
Kara pressed her knees into the side of Lena’s overly-extravagant bed (her princess bed, as Kara had joked once and only ever once) before letting Lena plop onto the mattress with a surprised squeak. “Oh my god, you ass!” Lena said as she squirmed into a more comfortable position, but Kara was barely paying attention, instead leaning over her and pulling at her sweatshirt. She dipped her hands below the hem, feeling nothing but soft, bare skin against her palms, and unceremoniously pulled it up to Lena’s shoulders, leaving Lena to deal with the sleeves herself as Kara slid her hands beneath her back to undo her bra.
“Kara, jesus!” Lena let out this little, breathless laugh that settled warm and pleasant in the pit of Kara’s stomach. “What’s gotten into you? Not that I’m, ah—” Her words cut off with a squeak, and she arched her back to help Kara reach the clasp of her bra. “Not that I’m complaining,” she finished. Her bra came off with a soft click and was gracelessly tossed away.
“Nothing, nothing,” Kara said, already starting in on Lena’s pants, untying the worn drawstrings. “It’s just been a long day, and I really wanna be with my best friend, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” Lena answered gently, her eyes warm.
(Warm, because Kara knew that despite all they’d been through together, Lena had still been stunned the first time Kara had called them best friends. Had sat silently through the rest of lunch with flushed cheeks and a small smile.)
But the expression on her face soon turned mischievous, and Kara braced herself, already knowing what was coming next. “Would you say it was super long?”
Kara offered up the most intimidating glare she possibly could. Not very, considering the way her fingers were already dipping beneath the waistband of her sweatpants. “I cannot believe our friends think I’m the one who tells the worst jokes. Now lift your butt. I’m trying to get your pants off.”
Lena snorted at her but lifted her hips anyway, and Kara pulled down her pants and underwear in the same motion. She let them drop somewhere behind her, and was about to join Lena in the bed, to finally touch her, make her come like she’s been thinking about ever since she’d woken up in the morning to a text from Lena reading, “Miss you. I hope you can come over later tonight? We have to finish season 2! (vulcan salute emoji)” But she was interrupted when Lena stuck her feet up at Kara, pointing at her with her toes.
“Kara,” Lena said, her tone serious. “I am not having sex with you with socks on.”
Kara wrinkled her nose at her, pulling Lena’s ankle closer. “Why can’t you take off your own socks?” A reasonable question, she thought, although somewhat undercut by the fact that Kara was already pulling off her first sock, tossing it away.
“Why would I, when you’re here?” Lena wiggles her toes in Kara’s direction—smug, as Kara gave an exaggerated groan, making sure to throw Lena’s other sock extra far away for good measure.
“Happy now?” Kara asked, a fake pout on her face as turned her attention to undoing the entirely-too-many buttons on her shirt.
“Very. Now come here.” Lena had blatantly stolen the ‘sad grabby hands’ technique from Kara, and she used it now unrepentantly. It worked, though, and Kara gave up on her shirt with a half shrug and tipped herself forward onto the bed, catching herself on her elbows. With a quick motion, she tossed her glasses onto the nightstand and began scooching her way up the bed, bringing her face level to Lena’s breasts.
Kara dropped a quick kiss to the center of Lena’s chest before cupping her breasts in her palms, squeezing them gently with what was probably a dopey grin on her face, judging by Lena’s knowing smirk. Luckily she spared Kara the teasing, instead wrapping her hand against the back of Kara’s neck and pulling her closer. Kara let herself be guided, kissing a line along the side of Lena’s breast until she was able to take a pebbled nipple into her mouth. The contented hum was probably Lena’s, but Kara couldn't be certain.
She sucked gently at Lena’s nipple, leaving soft kitten-licks with the tip of her tongue and barely-there nips against the sensitive skin, her head bobbing with Lena’s arching back. She teased the other with her free hand, rolling it between her thumb and index finger. Perfectly content to stay right where she was, until Lena’s and soft gasps above her and the impatient hand pulling not particularly gently at her hair finally convinced Kara to move on.
With a final, quick press of her teeth, Kara let Lena’s nipple slip from her mouth. Left sloppy kisses, instead, all down her stomach. She settled herself between Lena’s legs, nosing them apart and teasing her lips along her inner thighs.
“Kara…” Lena groaned out impatiently, already tugging at her hair, trying to pull her closer. It wouldn’t work, of course, unless Kara wanted it to. But tonight Kara did want it. Wanted Lena. And so she let herself be guided forward, flattening her tongue and licking slow and long against the length of Lena’s sex. “Oh God—” She heard Lena’s head thump back against her pillow, but Kara wasn’t looking, was instead watching the way Lena twitched beneath her when she blew a puff of cool air against her. She lowered her head again, licking lazy, unfocused lines
(She was planning to work Lena up slowly, of course. She’d been waiting to press her into the bed and eat her out all day, why would she rush things when she was exactly where she wanted to be?
At least, that had been the plan. But when Lena moaned helplessly—her voice already high and breathy—at the short, teasing flicks of Kara’s tongue against her labia, kicked her leg up over Kara’s shoulders and let her heel thump heavily against her back, pulled pathetically at Kara’s hair hissing out “Please don’t tease, I need you so bad!” Well. The plan changed.)
Kara grabbed at Lena’s hip with one hand, holding her in place, and dipped the other down to lightly trace circles around her entrance with one finger. Lena was wet—Rao, Lena was so wet, it was easy for Kara’s finger to just… slip right in. And a second, and a third. Lena whined at the feeling, trying to squirm even with Kara’s firm grip on her hips.
“Is that good?” Kara asked, her voice low and rumbling in her chest. Eyes fixed on the way her fingers looked pumping into Lena. Her response was a needy tug to her hair, and Kara let out a quick laugh, her breath hot against Lena’s sex. “Greedy,” she teased, but let Lena pull her back down anyway, easily closed her lips around Lena’s clit and sucked gently.
“Fuck, Kara!” Lena’s back arched up off the mattress, and the heel of her foot dug roughly into Kara’s back. Kara grinned against her, flicking her tongue quickly over Lena’s clit when it slipped from her mouth. On the next thrust of her fingers, she curled them forward, and—oh, Lena’s broken little whimper hit her like a bolt of lightning, a heat zipping down her spine and rippling all throughout her body, charging her up with energy like an entire afternoon spent on L-Corp’s roof lounging in the sun, all at once. Her hand tightened around Lena’s hip, holding her still as she fucked her faster, rougher.
“Kara—” (Lena’s voice was shaky, interrupted by her panting and the quiet, whimpering noises that caught in her throat.) “Kara, God, I’m—I’m close—”
Kara gave Lena’s clit a thorough lick before lifting her face just enough to speak. “I want you to come for me, Lena, okay?” She dropped her head, placed a swift kiss just above her clit. Lena’s hand slipped messily through her hair, now clinging for support instead of offering any direction. Kara looked briefly up at her, her flushed cheeks and her cutely furrowed brow and her red, red lips. “I love the way you look when you come in my mouth.” Lena’s flush only worsened, and Kara dipped her head back down to take her clit firmly between her lips, curling her fingers again as she sucked.
Lena clamped down her thighs around Kara’s head, her hips twitching and shaking in place as she came with a loud moan. Her hand tightened in Kara’s hair, and even with Lena’s thighs pressed against her ears Kara could hear Lena’s breathing—jerky and erratic, as Kara licked her gently through her orgasm, through her shuddering aftershocks. Dipping her tongue lower to taste Lena’s arousal even as she slowed the motions of her fingers.
Finally, Lena’s legs dropped back against the mattress, limp. Her hand slid bonelessly off Kara’s head, leaving a good chunk of hair right in her face.
And it was only seconds after Lena relaxed back against her pillow, after Lena let out a long, contented hum, that Kara huffed out a quick breath and quickly crawled back up her body, wiping her fingers carelessly against her shirt. Because, sure, Lena might have been calm and satisfied and about ready to fall asleep right where she was, but Kara sure wasn’t. “Lena,” she called, and thankfully the sad, needy tone of her voice drew Lena back into the moment, had her lifting up her thigh for Kara to straddle, her hips already rocking unsteadily. She struggled frantically with the button of her jeans—in the end, she was unsure whether she’d ultimately gotten it undone or simply ripped the denim—and with a single, shaky motion she grabbed Lena’s hand and pulled it to the front of her pants.
“Please,” she whimpered, dropping her own hand back to the mattress and falling forward to press her nose into the crook of Lena’s neck. Thankfully, Lena managed to slip her hand into Kara’s underwear, running her fingers through Kara’s folds and stroking messy circles around her clit. The angle was slightly awkward, with Lena’s wrist bent oddly around the front of Kara’s jeans, but Kara was so, so ready for her that it barely mattered. “F-fuck,” she breathed out roughly into the skin of Lena’s neck.
(A bad habit from Lena, the cursing. It was something Kara usually preferred to avoid, if for no other reason than that the words sounded goofily dirty coming from her mouth. But when Lena touched her like this, she could hardly help it.)
Lena brought her fingers lower, easily thrusting two fingers into her. Kara groaned loudly at the feeling, pressing her hips down against Lena’s hand and matching the pace of Lena’s fingers thrusting into her.
“Oh, honey,” Lena said, her voice still scratchy from her own orgasm, wrapping warm all around Kara’s body. “You’re all worked up.” Kara nodded weakly against her, her forehead bumping into Lena’s chin.
With a slight shift of her wrist, Lena pressed the base of her palm against Kara’s clit, and she jerked her hips sharply above her. “Lena,” Kara cried out, her voice low and ragged, her thoughts clouded with arousal. “Lena, please, I need—” She cut herself off with a gasp, grinding harder against Lena’s palm.
Finally, she tried again, “Lena—please, please kiss me?” With considerable effort, she lifted her head and met Lena’s eyes with her own.
Lena’s hand stilled, and with a whimper Kara tried to goad her back into her movements with a quick thrust of her hips. “Kara…” Lena said, hesitant. Her expression was unreadable, staring up at Kara with those pretty green eyes, deliberately scissoring her fingers inside of her in response to Kara’s needy grinding before resuming the fast pace she’d set. But it wasn’t enough.
“Lena, please,” Kara fell into a ramble, slurred words spilling from her lips as she rutted desperately against Lena’s fingers. “Just—just ‘til I come, I—ah, I promise, and, oh, and I’m so—I’m so close, Lena, but I can’t, I need—please, I just need—”
But she was cut off. She was thankfully, wonderfully, mercifully, amazingly cut off by Lena grabbing the back of her head with her free hand and pulling her into a rough kiss. Sloppy and uncoordinated and perfect; their first kiss, even as Kara’s hips rolled against Lena’s fingers. But it lasted only a moment longer before Kara was forced to break away, already breathless from the way Lena’s fingers curled forward inside her, tilting her head back with a gasp.
“Kara,” Lena whined, and that was all the warning Kara got before she found herself dragged into a second kiss. Longer this time, although with no more finesse, as Kara quickly gave up on trying to follow the movement of Lena’s lips and instead just panted against her mouth. Panted, as she fucked herself on Lena’s fingers, as she bore herself down onto Lena’s palm, as she came with a gasp, a hitched breath around Lena’s tongue, hips stuttering, arms shaking beneath her weight—she’d held up a damaged suspension bridge earlier that day for half an hour, but now she couldn’t even support herself, falling forward first onto her elbows and then onto Lena’s chest.
Finally, Kara slumped over, barely even lifting her hips to help Lena free up her hand. For a while, Lena rubbed gently at Kara’s back, keeping them close and letting Kara nuzzle into her neck. It didn’t take long, however, for Lena to resort to a very impolite whack at her shoulders. Kara grunted at her.
“Kara,” Lena wheezed out, “you weigh like a ton!”
“Do not,” Kara mumbled even as she rolled off Lena and flopped onto the bed at her side. “Humans can’t even hold that much.”
“You’re right,” Lena said, her voice dry, as she flipped onto her side to meet Kara’s eyes. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Y-yeah,” Kara said, and nothing else. Nothing else, ‘cause Lena had brought a hand to Kara’s face to brush some hair from her eyes, a small smile decorating her face, and—oh. Lena was beautiful. It wasn’t the first time Kara had thought that, or even said it. But, like, Lena was beautiful. It was worth repeating.
(“We can talk about things between us later,” Lena had said once, back when this first began. And—and Kara was wondering if, just maybe, tonight could be that ‘later’.)
“I—” She started, “I…” Lena’s eyes were still fixed on hers, pretty and deep and so, so green. And Kara… Kara sighed, her shoulders sagging just slightly. “I, uh, actually did bring pizza,” she finally said, lamely, breaking whatever moment had been growing between them. “That wasn’t, like, a porn cliché.” She laughed nervously, sitting up and feeling blindly around the nightstand behind her for her discarded glasses, eyes never leaving Lena’s.
(She chickened out, is the thing. But it would be okay, she reminded herself. Because they had tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after that. There was no need to rush.)
Lena, for her part, chuckled gently and stared up at Kara with a soft, unfamiliar sparkle in her eyes that made Kara want to lie herself back down on the bed and hold onto Lena for the rest of the night. “Kara Danvers,” she said seriously, “I know you would never joke about pizza like that. Don’t you worry.” She winked at Kara and sat up as well, stretching her arms against the headboard.
(Or, she ‘winked’ at Kara. More of a blink, with one eye just more enthusiastic about it than the other. Kara’s teased her about it often, and Lena’s remained adamant that she can so wink. She’s great at it, even.)
“Well… good.” Kara’s reply was weak, her eyes following closely as Lena lifted her arms above her head to stretch her back. She turned away before Lena could notice her ogling, instead scanning the room for Lena’s clothes. Pants on the floor by the bed, underwear about five feet away, one sock near the closet door, the other nowhere to be found…
“Um, Kara?” Lena’s voice was quiet, almost shy. But when Kara turned to face her, Lena was sat upright, her posture as formal as one could look in the nude aside from her fidgety hands, fingers twisting around each other. “Um,” she dropped her eyes to her hands, her lips curling into a small, cautious smile, “I love you...” Her voice lilted up, as if in question.
(Kara was the one who’d said it first, of course. A quiet afternoon in the aftermath of the Daxamite invasion, once Kara had forcibly dragged Lena away from the distraction of her work and back to her apartment. But without anything to occupy her mind, Lena had quickly fallen apart.
“I’m worse than either of them,” she’d said, staring blankly at a picture of herself and Kara together that Kara had recently had framed and put on her wall. “Worse than my mother and—and Lex. If they’re monsters, that makes me—” Her voice faded away.
“Lena, you know that’s not true,” Kara had said, trying to subtly guide her to the couch.
“Kara, I created a device to permanently drive off an entire species from the planet.” Lena resisted Kara’s gentle pull, her eyes remaining fixed to the picture. “It doesn’t matter who they were or what they were trying to do, I—I poisoned every last one of them like vermin. Even your…” Lena stopped herself, shrugging helplessly. “I did what Lex and my mother were never able to.”
“Lena, you saved so many people, both human and alien, that day.” Kara gave up trying to move Lena, had instead stepped close and wrapped her arms around her. “You did something so amazing, even though it was painful. You—you’re the bravest person I know, Lena. And the best. And… and even when you’re feeling bad I want you to know that I love you, and I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done—”
“You do?” Lena’s voice was small, and Kara had held her even tighter while she nodded fiercely.
Since then, it had become Lena’s favorite thing to hear. She would cling to the kindness Kara was so happy to offer like a lifeline, asking for Kara to tell her again nearly every time they saw each other.)
“I love you, too,” Kara said. And she meant it, she always would. But tonight, she noticed, the words seemed somehow heavier. As if they were given more weight by the taste of Lena’s come still thick on her tongue.
She chased those thoughts away, though, to be dealt with another time. Instead, she bent over to place a quick kiss against Lena’s cheek. Semi-awkward, in that they hadn’t really had any type of “how to deal with your best friend being naked in front of you when you aren’t having sex” conversation—but still nice, sweet. From the warm smile Lena offered, she felt the same way.
“More importantly,” Lena said, although the fond tone of her voice did nothing to convince Kara of her words, “where exactly did you throw my shirt, Supergirl?”