#but i'm attached to kara's love language being service

[lynnearlington]

31 and/or 34 with supercorp for the thing obviously

31) Who is more affectionate?

Lena remembers hearing once that the purest form of affection is a mother’s love.

She never knows what to think about that. Not really. Not when the only version of a mother’s love she knows involves a constantly overbearing pressure to succeed coupled with an ever present reminder that she’ll never be good enough.  

Kara Danvers, Lena thinks, must have had a really good mom.

“Hi,” Kara is saying, grinning from where she stands on the other side of Lena’s desk.

“Hi,” Lena parrots, eying the brown paper bag in her girlfriend’s hands. “What’s that?”

“Oh!” Kara startles as if she just remembered she was holding something. “I brought you lunch.”

Lena’s brows come together even as she smiles, a small laugh coming out as she takes the bag suddenly thrusted towards her. “Lunch?” She can’t imagine what kind of greasy high caloric meal her girlfriend considers lunch.

Kara nods enthusiastically, still smiling. “I went to that deli you mentioned liking the other night. The one with the salmon salads.”

Lena’s eyebrows raise. “The one in Metropolis?”

“Yeah,” Kara says, grining like this is a normal conversation.

“You went all the way to Metropolis to get me lunch?”

Kara shrugs. “I had some extra time this morning.”

When she opens the bag she sees a takeout that is indeed from her favorite lunch spot in Metropolis, but she only spots the one box. “Did you not get something for yourself?”

“Oh,” Kara says with a dismissive wave and a quick laugh. “I already ate and I’ve got some leftovers at work. I’ll be fine.” Lena looks at her skeptically because she’s seen Kara eat at least three meals in one sitting and she can count on one hand the amount of times she’s seen her girlfriend say no to food.

Kara laughs again. “Really,” she says, adjusting the glasses on her face. “I just wanted to stop by and drop this off for you.”

“So you’re not staying?” Lena hates the disappointed tone her voice takes, but she can’t hold it back. She’s also struggling to process the part of this conversation that means Kara flew across the country for the express and sole reason of bringing Lena lunch.

“Sorry,” Kara says, rounding Lena’s desk to press a quick, but warm kiss to her cheek. It leaves her skin tingling even as Kara steps away. “I’ve got to get back to work, but rain check.”

Just as Kara’s at her office door, Lena stops her with a quiet, “Kara?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

Kara grins at her. “Anytime. I love you.”

Lena doesn’t have time to repeat the sentiment back before Kara is out the door and she’s left alone in the silence of her office with the smells of her favorite meal emanating from a brown paper bag on her desk.

When she pulls the styrofoam box out of the bag she notices the loopy handwriting of her girlfriend across the white surface. Hope you have a great day at work! xoxo K

--

Lena mentions in passing that she keeps forgetting to call for her dry cleaning service and that she’s worried she’s going to end up with only one clean blouse and skirt pretty soon. A day later when she walks into her closet her dry cleaning is hanging off a hook, all her work outfits in plastic coverings, clean and pressed and ready to go.

All she can do is stare at it for a while, blinking in disbelief as she tries to remember if maybe she blacked out and ran errands or something.

Kara walks into the closet (presumably because Lena’s been in there for way longer than normal) and laughs, her palm pressing at the small of Lena’s back. “You okay?”

“Did you do my dry cleaning?” Lena asks, turning slightly widened eyes towards her girlfriend.

Kara shrugs, looks at the object in question. “You kept forgetting.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Lena says, soft and uncertain. She resists the urge to ask what are you looking to get in exchange because she’s trying to accept that Kara just does things with this uniquely foolhardy sincerity and looks for nothing in return.

“I know,” Kara says, kissing Lena softly on the cheek and rubbing a soothing hand up her spine. “But I wanted to.”

Lena feels idiotic for being overwhelmed by dry cleaning of all things and she has to turn away from Kara, biting the inside of her cheek at the sudden heat in her eyes. She steps away and back out into the bedroom, headed towards the kitchen. “What do you want for dinner?”

Mercifully, Kara allows her retreat, just follows along behind listing off takeout options.

Hours later, when they’re snuggled under the warm covers of her bed, Lena finally lets out a soft, “Thanks.”

Kara’s brow contracts for a moment before her face relaxes. “For the dry cleaning?”

Lena shakes her head, but her throat closes on the words she wants to say. Thanks for loving me.

Kara seems to understand the dilemma even in the darkness of the bedroom. Her hand reaches out to cup at Lena’s cheek. “Don’t thank me for something I love doing.”

--

After a particularly long workday in which Lena can feel the stress of it aching her bones, she comes home to soft acoustic music playing throughout her apartment, the smell of something delicious and a glass of red wine already poured on her kitchen counter.

“Kara?” Her eyes stay on the glass of wine as she calls out for her girlfriend and sets her bag and jacket on a nearby barstool. Unless her apartment has suddenly been possessed by an overly considerate poltergeist, there’s only one possible person responsible for this.

“Hey,” Kara says, coming around the corner with a bright smile. She walks straight up to Lena and presses a warm welcoming kiss to her lips. “Welcome home.”

Lena smiles into it, unbidden and swipes what must be flour off of Kara’s cheek. “What’s all this?”

Kara just shrugs, her arms wrapping around Lena’s waist. “I made dinner. And dessert.”

“I smell that.”

“And I poured you some wine and now you’re going to go to the bedroom and put on your comfiest clothes and we are going to relax for the rest of the night.”

It’s a sinful proposition and Lena can already feel some of the tension of the day seep out of her body. “Don’t you have to-”

“Not tonight,” Kara interrupts with a smile. “Alex gave me the night off!”

Lena knows that Kara doesn’t ever really get the night off, but she lets herself sink into the idea of a lazy evening with her girlfriend on the couch.

“So come on,” Kara says, spinning Lena around by the shoulders and marching her handily towards the bedroom.

Later, when Lena’s stomach is full of a delicious dinner (I got the recipe from James who got it from Clark who got it from Martha and she had to Facetime me through it because I burned it twice), she curls up with Kara on the couch, both of them in sweatpants and oversized socks and Lena curls her hands warmly around a cup of hot chocolate - the smell of which is practically lulling her to sleep.

“I needed tonight,” Lena confesses, leaning her head on Kara’s shoulder for a moment.

Kara rearranges a blanket so it covers both of them. “I know,” she answers and Lena picks her head up to look at her girlfriend.

“How did you know?”

“I stopped by your office over lunch,” she says and Lena’s eyebrows raise in surprise. Was she really so out of it that she blacked out her girlfriend’s visit?

Kara laughs at the expression. “As soon as I saw the almost crazed look in Jess’s eyes I knew you were having a long day so I turned around and went back to work,” Kara says, rubbing her thumb over the crease in Lena’s brow.

“You should have told me you stopped by.”

“If I had you would have felt obligated to hang out with me and then gotten home even later and with more stress.”

“You’re not an obligation, Kara,” she protests, hating that she missed out on an opportunity to see her girlfriend in the middle of her admittedly crazy day.

“You know what I mean.” 

“You still should have said something,” Lena says and hates the way her mouth almost forms a pout against her will.” 

It makes Kara laugh. “Well I hope I made up for it,” her girlfriend jokes. 

Lena just stares at her. “More than. You really didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” Lena tells her, failing to add the not for me that her head does. 

Kara purses her lips, cards her fingers through Lena’s hair. “I just wanted to make you feel better.”

Lena feels the sentiment deep inside her, it warms her gut and travels over her skin and she feels enveloped in a kind of love she didn’t think she’d ever find in her lifetime. She wonders if someone taught Kara how to love or if it was just something she was born with.

“You’re too good to me,” Lena says softly, feeling like she can never adequately repay Kara for the gentle way she takes care of her.

Kara looks almost bewildered, a playful smile on her lips. “There’s no such thing.”

Lena kisses her then because she doesn’t know what else to say.