crossposting for great justice!
Do you like superheroes? Do you like teenage shenanigans? Do you like pretty teenage superheroes making out? This may be the fic for you, sir or madam!
held like a wish
steph/kara, 1743 words, t
Steph's bedroom window gets a pretty decent amount of traffic for not-quite-suburban Gotham.
Her mom commented once on how quickly the paint on the sill was wearing down (to which Steph eloquently replied, "Um," around a mouthful of mashed potatoes), but chances are, whatever subsection of Crystal Brown's mind that rationalizes a midnight curfew for a known vigilante also clings to the notion that maybe Steph's just sneaking out for parties and booze and boys instead of the Mission. And at this point, Steph is so down with not shattering her mom's whole willful ignorance thing as long as it's working for her. If years of Bat-drama have taught her anything, it's that in the period before it topples your life down around your ankles and earns you a couple notches on the dead sidekick post, compartmentalization can be nifty.
(It was, she muses, not intended to be quite as sardonic in sentiment as the final product would have it.)
So, yes, she got plenty of drop-ins from boys in tights back in the day, not to mention girls in pointy bat-ears, and she's pretty sure the Bat-daddy himself visits sometimes, unannounced and unseen, and for the love of all that is right in this world, she does not want to think about the timing nor frequency of those appointments because some things still have to be sacrosanct, and hey, willful ignorance: maybe it's hereditary.
But Bruce is off-world (she hopes, with a darting glance at all the potentially dark and/or spooky corners in her room), Cass is in Hong Kong, and Tim-. Does not want to pop in through her window anymore, apparently. So maybe, maybe she was staring at the glass with a teensy bit of longing, but she definitely wasn't expecting Kara to swoop up and knock on the window pane, grinning with the force of a small sun.
Even Gothamites can be surprised. It's a good thing to remember.
Steph squeaks a little in delight, tripping over textbooks and a few dirty pairs of jeans on her way to the window, flipping the latch and getting tackled into an unmistakably Kryptonian hug.
"Hi!" she says into Kara's hair. "Ow!"
"Oh, crap, sorry." She refrains from crushing Steph's ribs with the force of her enthusiasm and floats cross-legged a few feet off the ground. "I'm still working on the stoic but compassionate Superman smile." She tries one out on Steph, straightening her posture and focusing her gaze.
"Okay, please stop, you look like you're trying to heat-vision me to death," Steph cackles. Even if it had created the desired effect, Steph probably wouldn't have told. Hairline fractures aside, she likes that Kara is goofy and perky and kick-ass without having to be serious all the time. It's kind of reminiscent of what Steph thought Superboy would be like, before she actually met Superboy and subsequently tore down all her posters with his face on it.
She keeps the generic S-shield up, plastered on her ceiling. It's not like he owns the brand, anyway.
Kara scrunches her face up adorably and twists upside down, and nope, Steph is definitely not watching the way her skirt ripples around her hips, her impossibly strong thighs. "I guess I'll just stick with hugs for now. So what's on the agenda tonight? Arkham breakout, serial killers, bomb threats?"
"Or, y'know, four chapters of Philosophy." Steph has to smile at how disappointed Kara looks. "My cape's at the cleaners, so I'm gonna have to make do with a boxers and t-shirt kinda night."
"I didn't think Bats were allowed to take nights off. Crime never sleeps, right?"
"Nor do college students," Steph shrugs. "Honestly? If I tried to patrol tonight, Oracle would probably electrocute me until I marched my butt back home."
"So, let's not patrol," Kara says, dropping down onto Steph's bed with an elegant flop. "We can just hang. But literally! Like, in mid-air. A quick flight always clears my head."
"I think Kryptonians are probably immune to airsickness," Steph says wryly. Kara tosses a pillow at her and laughs. "What are you even doing in Gotham tonight, if there's no pressing need to save the universe?"
"I was in the neighborhood-" Steph raises an eyebrow. "Okay, fine, I was in Albuquerque and there is literally nothing going on in the continental U.S. right now. And I kinda just wanted to see you."
Steph frowns at her pile of homework, willing it to shrink under her gaze. It doesn't work. She applies the same method to Kara, and on top of not working, it also forces her to factor in the over five feet of unfairly pretty alien lying on her bed, lower lip stuck out in an exaggerated pout, and Steph can see her stomach rise with every breath and flying is maybe looking like the safer option here. "Should I put pants on, or bring a jacket or something?"
Kara's grin is luminous, and it sets off sparks in Steph's belly when she wraps an arm around her waist. "You'll be fine," she promises, and launches them out the window.
And maybe if Steph were a nigh invulnerable alien, she would be fine, but as it stands: "Fuck!"
"Okay, it is not that bad."
"Says the girl who is her own furnace."
"Then come here, you big baby." Kara tugs her closer while the night air whips around them, arm tight against her back, and hitches Steph's thigh up around her hip. Kara's warmth is electric: it works its way through her like a circuit, spreading through her limbs all the way to her fingertips, culminating in the flush on her cheeks and the surge of something which is decidedly not airsickness low in her belly.
And that's interesting, says Steph's brain, while various other parts of her anatomy are shouting exuberantly in what could not be considered by any stretch of the imagination intelligible language. She plays it cool for roughly three seconds before she remembers, superhearing, duh, and trying to pretend her pulse isn't racing is just making her look kind of silly. She hides her face against Kara's neck and giggles nervously. "Why, Supergirl, you might give a lady ideas."
"Wouldn't want that," Kara trills, does a loop-de-loop over midtown while Steph squawks in her ear. "It might blow this whole surprise seduction thing I've got planned right out of the water."
Steph pulls back for a moment to look at her. Kara's got her bottom lip between her teeth, staring up at her earnestly. And maybe a little shy. Steph groans. "You are literally too cute to exist." Kara blushes and grins, and Steph's starting to lean in because that bottom lip is in desperate need of some Steph-style TLC, but then Kara flips them again and she flails around until she becomes intimately acquainted with Kara's clavicle.
And thinks, what the hell.
"Whoa, okay," Kara says, tightening her grip ever so slightly. Kryptonian skin might be tough as nails, but hers feels soft and pliant under Steph's mouth, her pulse fluttering under Steph's tongue (in the interest of self-preservation, though, biting will be saved for a later, braver date). "That is fantastic and you should definitely not stop, but you are seriously impairing my ability fly straight."
"Then you should probably stop." Steph presses a light kiss to Kara's jaw. "Find a building to land us on."
"What, seriously? Making out on rooftops is a thing for you guys?" Her touchdown is a little sloppy, Steph notes with pride, but she's quickly distracted by Kara straddling her.
"If this concrete could only talk," she intones solemnly and wraps her arms around Kara's neck, pulls her closer to kiss her for real. Making out on rooftops is really only ideal when you're in uniform, and the stone is kind of scratchy and cold against her back, but Kara's draped over top of her, radiating heat, and she kisses slow and messy and Steph really just wants her closer, impossibly closer, wants to curl up into her like a blanket on a cold day. Kara's hands, though, there's nothing slow about them-they don't stop, winding in her hair, then settling on her shoulders before flitting up and down her sides. It manages to be hot and at the same time, deeply amusing, which astounds her. It's been so long since she associated kissing with fun, but this. This isn't angst-ridden with the weight of the Mission hanging over them, creepy power dynamics to boot. This isn't stolen kisses on the training mats, desperate and sexy but always treated as an interruption, a distraction.
This is nice. This is good.
And presumably would continue to be, except Kara's pulling back, head cocked to the side like she's listening for something.
Steph grumbles and hides her face in her hands. "Don't tell me. Aliens are invading and planning on taking over the Earth."
"You know, you think you're joking." Kara grimaces and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "The League probably has it under control."
"You are such a liar," Steph smiles, pushing up on her elbows. "Go on. The fate of the world might rest in your very capable and frisky hands."
"You could suit up and come with," Kara offers, resting her forehead against Steph's.
"Nah. You saw my tiny fort of textbooks. And anyway, you got this." Kara smiles, slow like honey, and nuzzles Steph's cheek. "Um, you should probably take me home, first, though. I don't actually have a spare grapple hidden in my jammies."
"Well, duh. X-ray vision," Kara coughs.
"Pervert," says Steph fondly, and lets herself be scooped up into strong arms.
When they get home, Kara lingers at her window hesitantly until Steph raises an eyebrow at her. "It's just-are we still BFF?"
"Of course," Steph says, lacing her fingers through Kara's.
"And are we still-y'know-?" Kara doesn't wait for Steph to ask her to clarify, just swoops in and kisses her quick and hard.
"Very big yes," Steph says, slightly dazed. "To be continued?"
"As soon as I kick some intergalactic butt," Kara says with a grin. Steph blinks, and there's a rush of wind, and she's gone.
There are at least four things she should be doing right now, but Steph just crawls onto the mound of homework that has eaten her bed, stares up at the peeling poster on her ceiling and smiles.
held like a wish
steph/kara, 1743 words, t
Steph's bedroom window gets a pretty decent amount of traffic for not-quite-suburban Gotham.
Her mom commented once on how quickly the paint on the sill was wearing down (to which Steph eloquently replied, "Um," around a mouthful of mashed potatoes), but chances are, whatever subsection of Crystal Brown's mind that rationalizes a midnight curfew for a known vigilante also clings to the notion that maybe Steph's just sneaking out for parties and booze and boys instead of the Mission. And at this point, Steph is so down with not shattering her mom's whole willful ignorance thing as long as it's working for her. If years of Bat-drama have taught her anything, it's that in the period before it topples your life down around your ankles and earns you a couple notches on the dead sidekick post, compartmentalization can be nifty.
(It was, she muses, not intended to be quite as sardonic in sentiment as the final product would have it.)
So, yes, she got plenty of drop-ins from boys in tights back in the day, not to mention girls in pointy bat-ears, and she's pretty sure the Bat-daddy himself visits sometimes, unannounced and unseen, and for the love of all that is right in this world, she does not want to think about the timing nor frequency of those appointments because some things still have to be sacrosanct, and hey, willful ignorance: maybe it's hereditary.
But Bruce is off-world (she hopes, with a darting glance at all the potentially dark and/or spooky corners in her room), Cass is in Hong Kong, and Tim-. Does not want to pop in through her window anymore, apparently. So maybe, maybe she was staring at the glass with a teensy bit of longing, but she definitely wasn't expecting Kara to swoop up and knock on the window pane, grinning with the force of a small sun.
Even Gothamites can be surprised. It's a good thing to remember.
Steph squeaks a little in delight, tripping over textbooks and a few dirty pairs of jeans on her way to the window, flipping the latch and getting tackled into an unmistakably Kryptonian hug.
"Hi!" she says into Kara's hair. "Ow!"
"Oh, crap, sorry." She refrains from crushing Steph's ribs with the force of her enthusiasm and floats cross-legged a few feet off the ground. "I'm still working on the stoic but compassionate Superman smile." She tries one out on Steph, straightening her posture and focusing her gaze.
"Okay, please stop, you look like you're trying to heat-vision me to death," Steph cackles. Even if it had created the desired effect, Steph probably wouldn't have told. Hairline fractures aside, she likes that Kara is goofy and perky and kick-ass without having to be serious all the time. It's kind of reminiscent of what Steph thought Superboy would be like, before she actually met Superboy and subsequently tore down all her posters with his face on it.
She keeps the generic S-shield up, plastered on her ceiling. It's not like he owns the brand, anyway.
Kara scrunches her face up adorably and twists upside down, and nope, Steph is definitely not watching the way her skirt ripples around her hips, her impossibly strong thighs. "I guess I'll just stick with hugs for now. So what's on the agenda tonight? Arkham breakout, serial killers, bomb threats?"
"Or, y'know, four chapters of Philosophy." Steph has to smile at how disappointed Kara looks. "My cape's at the cleaners, so I'm gonna have to make do with a boxers and t-shirt kinda night."
"I didn't think Bats were allowed to take nights off. Crime never sleeps, right?"
"Nor do college students," Steph shrugs. "Honestly? If I tried to patrol tonight, Oracle would probably electrocute me until I marched my butt back home."
"So, let's not patrol," Kara says, dropping down onto Steph's bed with an elegant flop. "We can just hang. But literally! Like, in mid-air. A quick flight always clears my head."
"I think Kryptonians are probably immune to airsickness," Steph says wryly. Kara tosses a pillow at her and laughs. "What are you even doing in Gotham tonight, if there's no pressing need to save the universe?"
"I was in the neighborhood-" Steph raises an eyebrow. "Okay, fine, I was in Albuquerque and there is literally nothing going on in the continental U.S. right now. And I kinda just wanted to see you."
Steph frowns at her pile of homework, willing it to shrink under her gaze. It doesn't work. She applies the same method to Kara, and on top of not working, it also forces her to factor in the over five feet of unfairly pretty alien lying on her bed, lower lip stuck out in an exaggerated pout, and Steph can see her stomach rise with every breath and flying is maybe looking like the safer option here. "Should I put pants on, or bring a jacket or something?"
Kara's grin is luminous, and it sets off sparks in Steph's belly when she wraps an arm around her waist. "You'll be fine," she promises, and launches them out the window.
And maybe if Steph were a nigh invulnerable alien, she would be fine, but as it stands: "Fuck!"
"Okay, it is not that bad."
"Says the girl who is her own furnace."
"Then come here, you big baby." Kara tugs her closer while the night air whips around them, arm tight against her back, and hitches Steph's thigh up around her hip. Kara's warmth is electric: it works its way through her like a circuit, spreading through her limbs all the way to her fingertips, culminating in the flush on her cheeks and the surge of something which is decidedly not airsickness low in her belly.
And that's interesting, says Steph's brain, while various other parts of her anatomy are shouting exuberantly in what could not be considered by any stretch of the imagination intelligible language. She plays it cool for roughly three seconds before she remembers, superhearing, duh, and trying to pretend her pulse isn't racing is just making her look kind of silly. She hides her face against Kara's neck and giggles nervously. "Why, Supergirl, you might give a lady ideas."
"Wouldn't want that," Kara trills, does a loop-de-loop over midtown while Steph squawks in her ear. "It might blow this whole surprise seduction thing I've got planned right out of the water."
Steph pulls back for a moment to look at her. Kara's got her bottom lip between her teeth, staring up at her earnestly. And maybe a little shy. Steph groans. "You are literally too cute to exist." Kara blushes and grins, and Steph's starting to lean in because that bottom lip is in desperate need of some Steph-style TLC, but then Kara flips them again and she flails around until she becomes intimately acquainted with Kara's clavicle.
And thinks, what the hell.
"Whoa, okay," Kara says, tightening her grip ever so slightly. Kryptonian skin might be tough as nails, but hers feels soft and pliant under Steph's mouth, her pulse fluttering under Steph's tongue (in the interest of self-preservation, though, biting will be saved for a later, braver date). "That is fantastic and you should definitely not stop, but you are seriously impairing my ability fly straight."
"Then you should probably stop." Steph presses a light kiss to Kara's jaw. "Find a building to land us on."
"What, seriously? Making out on rooftops is a thing for you guys?" Her touchdown is a little sloppy, Steph notes with pride, but she's quickly distracted by Kara straddling her.
"If this concrete could only talk," she intones solemnly and wraps her arms around Kara's neck, pulls her closer to kiss her for real. Making out on rooftops is really only ideal when you're in uniform, and the stone is kind of scratchy and cold against her back, but Kara's draped over top of her, radiating heat, and she kisses slow and messy and Steph really just wants her closer, impossibly closer, wants to curl up into her like a blanket on a cold day. Kara's hands, though, there's nothing slow about them-they don't stop, winding in her hair, then settling on her shoulders before flitting up and down her sides. It manages to be hot and at the same time, deeply amusing, which astounds her. It's been so long since she associated kissing with fun, but this. This isn't angst-ridden with the weight of the Mission hanging over them, creepy power dynamics to boot. This isn't stolen kisses on the training mats, desperate and sexy but always treated as an interruption, a distraction.
This is nice. This is good.
And presumably would continue to be, except Kara's pulling back, head cocked to the side like she's listening for something.
Steph grumbles and hides her face in her hands. "Don't tell me. Aliens are invading and planning on taking over the Earth."
"You know, you think you're joking." Kara grimaces and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "The League probably has it under control."
"You are such a liar," Steph smiles, pushing up on her elbows. "Go on. The fate of the world might rest in your very capable and frisky hands."
"You could suit up and come with," Kara offers, resting her forehead against Steph's.
"Nah. You saw my tiny fort of textbooks. And anyway, you got this." Kara smiles, slow like honey, and nuzzles Steph's cheek. "Um, you should probably take me home, first, though. I don't actually have a spare grapple hidden in my jammies."
"Well, duh. X-ray vision," Kara coughs.
"Pervert," says Steph fondly, and lets herself be scooped up into strong arms.
When they get home, Kara lingers at her window hesitantly until Steph raises an eyebrow at her. "It's just-are we still BFF?"
"Of course," Steph says, lacing her fingers through Kara's.
"And are we still-y'know-?" Kara doesn't wait for Steph to ask her to clarify, just swoops in and kisses her quick and hard.
"Very big yes," Steph says, slightly dazed. "To be continued?"
"As soon as I kick some intergalactic butt," Kara says with a grin. Steph blinks, and there's a rush of wind, and she's gone.
There are at least four things she should be doing right now, but Steph just crawls onto the mound of homework that has eaten her bed, stares up at the peeling poster on her ceiling and smiles.