#new romances

[eqt-95]

a new kind of romance, finale

part 8 | new years

🥟 | dumplings

Kara was not having a good time.

Sure, she loved her job. Yes, she adored her staff. Absolutely, she found her role as editor-in-chief worthwhile and world-saving in its own way.

But today was a holiday and her staff was absent and her role as editor-in-chief was only kind of worthwhile given they’d gone to print three days earlier. 

Today was a day meant to be surrounded by friends, new beginnings, and maybe the slightest tinge of a hangover nursed by a staggering stack of Danvers world-famous pancakes. 

It was a day to slip into cozy sweats; an evening unburdened by Supergirl duties or an upcoming deadline; a series of uninterrupted hours where she could collapse onto her couch, bask in the blue glow of her television after consuming far too much post-brunch take-out, and, if she played her cards right, idly massaging the too-tight calves of her very best friend who was stretched out across her lap.

The tips of her fingers crawled between her glasses and face and pressed with a heavy sigh against her eyes because today was not one of those days. Kara wondered if she’d ever have one of those days again.

Not the blue glow or take-out or cozy sweats: those were always within reach. It was the best friend she wasn’t quite sure about. 

Because things were kind of different now. Things were weird and awkward, and Kara didn’t know if it was her or them. Either way, she was one supersuit short of feeling brave enough to do anything about it.

So she was at work. On a holiday.

“You know,” came a voice that nearly sent Kara flying into the next floor, “when Alex told me you were skipping New Year's brunch, I almost didn't believe her.”

“Lena,” Kara choked. She looked up and locked eyes with a very soft, very pretty, very smirking Lena Luthor and felt a rush of weird and awkward all over again. “I didn't, uh, hi.”

“Must be important work,” Lena replied, nodding toward the glasses propped on Kara's nose. They'd been a gift earlier that summer: improved and Lena-Luthor-approved to cut out even more noise and distraction than her last pair. 

“Just… just wanted to focus,” Kara replied.

“On next month’s issue?”

“Never too early to get ahead,” Kara offered lamely.

“Well, is it too early for lunch?” Lena asked, lifting a plastic bag overflowing with take-out containers.

“I thought that was my job,” Kara said, eyeing the strained bag and feeling her stomach betray her with an oversized growl.

“Sometimes even heroes need saving,” Lena chuckled, setting the bag onto Kara’s overflowing desk. “And I’m very good at giving.”

The tease, the flick of an eyebrow, and the confident smirk would have normally sent Kara’s cheeks on fire and stumbling for words and trying very hard to keep strictly platonic, best-friend thoughts at the forefront of her mind, but today was not one of those days. 

“Mhm,” Kara said with a labored smile and a strained chuckle and a fiddle with her glasses. 

Because today was awkward and weird-feeling just like every day since cuddles didn’t feel like something just best friends did.

Lena, ever astute and thoughtful and considerate, noticed the wave of discomfort radiating from Kara, and for that Kara winced even more.

“Are… are we ok?” Lena asked, fingers playing with the edge of her sleeves. It was the exact opposite of the teasing confidence spoken moments earlier; this came out shy and hesitant.

“Sure,” Kara replied automatically in a way that sounded forced, sounded fake, sounded like a lie. Because it was. It was, and Lena knew it. 

“Ok,” she nodded back, and that made it feel worse. Because Kara knew that Lena knew. “Well, I just wanted to drop this off-”

“Stay,” Kara rushed. “Uhm, please? Please stay?”

What followed wasn’t the most awkward lunch Kara had ever had, but it sure was close. Conversation lagged and Kara, lost in the labyrinth of thoughts and doubts and concerns that had played on repeat for no less than two weeks rattled around louder and louder and -

Kara blinked, realizing she’d missed whatever Lena just said. And Lena noticed but, with generous tact, looked down and quietly poked at her food and gosh this was going terribly.

“I’m sorry,” Kara said unprompted. “I’ve been distracted and… and it’s not fair to you. You skipped brunch and brought all of this delicious food and I’ve been terrible company and a bad f-friend,” she said, her throat choking around the last word.

And then a smile flashed across her best friend’s face. It was tiny and wistful. “You could never be, darling.”

And it made Kara’s stomach flutter and twist. It made it flutter and twist, and Kara clung to the tiny thread for dear life and jumped.

“Do you, uh… do you want one?”

“You’re offering me a potsticker?” Lena asked, the faintest tone of disbelief at the chopsticks floating in front of her with a perfectly pan-fried dumpling pinched between them.

Kara nodded, her outstretched, chopstick-holding hand shaking in a very unhero-like way.

And she only barely managed to snatch it, her chopsticks, and the floating potsticker back in time when Lena’s hand rose to meet the literal best pillow of food on the entire planet.

“You can’t use your hands,” Kara said - yelled - and then silently begged the earth to split open and swallow her whole.

“I… I can’t?” Lena asked, hand flinching back in surprise.

“We… there uhm, there aren’t any napkins,” Kara explained like a lying four-year-old. 

Because there absolutely were napkins. 

In plain sight. 

Directly next to Kara’s half-eaten egg roll.

Before Lena could challenge the blatantly bizarre lie with her confused scowl and keen, impossibly brilliant, and scientifically perfect observation skills, Kara blindly rambled ahead while her elbow did the inelegant task of plopping across the desk onto the stack of said napkins.

“And these are, uh, greasy? Greasy,” Kara continued, sliding her elbow with the subtlety of a firework to the edge of her desk and, just as subtly, knocking the napkins to the floor. 

“Greasy,” Lena parroted, eyes distracted by Kara’s elbow’s antics.

“I-in a good way,” Kara clarified. The moment was only briefly interrupted by the squeak of her chair rolling to the left.

To cover the stack of napkins.

The napkins which were definitely there.

“I wouldn’t offer one if they were bad, but since we don’t have napkins then,” Kara explained, “then you’d need to- to…uhm.”

“To what?” Lena pressed.

“To… wipe them on your shirt?” Kara finished feeling mortified and like the most incapable alien on the planet. 

Which was why, when Lena’s head tilted to the side and her gaze fell to where the napkins were most definitely scattered around on the ground then darted back to Kara’s and sparkled in that special way, Kara felt her heart swell and her stomach flutter just a little bit more. 

“Well,” Lena began, leaning forward with the focus of a predator, “we can’t have that.”

And Kara, the weakest, most inept prey in a five hundred-mile radius swallowed against the parchment that had become her throat, shook her head weakly, and kept the freefall going.

And it might have been something.

Could have been something.

Was nearly something. 

Lena was hovering forward. 

Lips parted. 

Eyes locked on Kara’s. 

Which was exactly when Kara’s big giant nerves took over and sent her chopsticks splintering and the potsticker slipping out of her grasp with all the grace of Flubber before zipping across the office to land with an unceremonious splat against the glass partition.

All of which turned that ‘near something’ into one giant ‘swing and miss'. 

But before Kara could articulate her feelings as ‘mortified’ and ‘crestfallen’ and ‘like a giant himbo’, Lena burst out into the kind of bright laughter that made her dimples show and smile beam and Kara wonder if how they were was enough.

Because this could be fine. 

They could be fine.

So distracted was Kara that she didn’t notice Lena swipe the last, un-splatted potsticker from Kara’s plate, and she definitely didn’t process when Lena, ever so casually, asked Kara for a napkin to wipe her fingers off, and she was lightyears from self-awareness when she automatically snatched one from the floor.

That’s how lunch continued and ended: with Lena smiling her special smile and Kara lost in a sort of daze, inhaling the spread of options Lena brought.

“I’ll let you get back to it,” Lena said when the final remnants of lo mein were polished off. “Can’t have Cat Grant accusing me of derailing her Editor-in-Chief.”

“Oh, ok,” Kara said, rising to join Lena and crashing back to earth while simultaneously knocking her knee against the desk and sending a stack of proofs sliding like Niagra Falls to the floor.

“No, no, I’ve got this,” Kara said, waving Lena away. She clambered around the desk and intercepted her with a bashful grin and outstretched arms. They wrapped comfortably around Lena like they always did, and it made her feel all tiny sorts of warm and happy. 

This could be fine.

“Thanks for lunch,” she muttered into the side of Lena’s head.

“What are friends for?” Lena said, hands falling to Kara’s upper arms and disarming Kara with a practiced smile.

Kara nodded, her own smile feeling tight and confused. 

It faltered only slightly when the door clicked shut and she crouched to pick up the disheveled proofs. 

This could be fine. 

Kara could be totally normal and cool and collected, and Lena could be her usual pretty and perfect and kind and thoughtful self. And everything could be great and par for the course and completely and totally… 

Normal. 

Kara rolled back onto her heels and pondered that thought: normal. She pondered and pondered some more. A whole minute passed while the idea braised in her brain, and it kind of didn’t sit right.

It didn’t sit right one bit.

And then the most obvious thing on the whole giant existence of everything occurred - no, re-occurred: Kara didn’t want normal. She definitely didn’t want to go back to normal. She wanted the opposite of normal. In fact, she didn’t want normal for another second of her whole entire life.

Unless that not-normal was Lena hating her guts for the rest of eternity. That was not a not-normal Kara had the stomach for, but before she could let that worry petrify her from action, she jumped to her feet and clambered toward the stairwell. 

It took only a second; a perfectly timed second that synchronized with the elevator doors opening and Kara’s very best friend appearing in the ground floor lobby.

“Kara,” Lena said, jumping at what was probably a borderline crazed expression on Kara’s face when two muscular arms spread across the elevator’s threshold, blocking Lena’s exit. “Wha-”

“Mistletoe magic,” Kara stammered inelegantly.

“Mistletoe-?” Lena began, her surprise turning to a flash of hurt.

“With you,” Kara clarified. “I wanted… I wanted mistletoe magic with you.”

“With… me?” Lena asked slowly, cautiously - nervously.

“I wanted… I wanted you - want you. I didn’t mean to, you know,” Kara clarified poorly, “but then I got so nervous. And then Andrea was there and, and I just… I thought you didn’t want it. And maybe you don’t which is - that’s fine, but I can’t stop thinking that maybe you do? Because I do. I really do and, and when you… with the frosting? And the dress? You were just so, so… Rao. And you’re so so brilliant and kind and my best friend-”

“Me too.”

“- and I don’t want to ruin any… any…thing,” Kara trailed off, the tiny echo of Lena’s confession rattling in her ears. “What?”

Then something even louder started rattling in Kara’s ears because her rambling had gone on long enough to trigger the lift’s alarm.

Then came a tug against Kara’s shirt.

Then Kara felt herself being pulled into the lift.

Then she felt the warmth breath against her cheek.

“I wanted mistletoe magic with you, too.”

“R-really?” Kara asked, her eyes darting down to Lena’s perfectly painted lips.

“Really.”

“Like…” Kara continued, glancing back up to double check Lena’s eyes were serious. “Like real-”

They were. They were dead serious. And Kara registered it only a millisecond before Lena’s lips cut off what was definitely going to be another babble-fest. Lena’s lips cut her off and all of her thoughts and words disappeared and instead every sense was engulfed by soft, warm, gentle and - oh wowsers.

“Like really, really,” Lena whispered before the elevator lurched upward and before Kara could register the sparks of gold magic and green leaves flickering above them and before recapturing Kara’s mouth and setting fire to Kara’s core.

// sixty-three floors later //

“So, you liked the dress?” Lena asked.

- - - - - - -

ko-fi and other ao3 reads

[balu8]

New Romances #17: Stars in My Eyes

by Alex Toth (pencils) and Mike Peppe (inks)

Pines

[becuzmdsaidineededpersonality]

[nolvini]

for all the ghosts that are never gonna catch me

[ionomycin]

All the best boy hugs for Karlach

[specsthesecond]

⋆｡ﾟ🪐｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡*⋆｡ﾟ🛸｡⋆｡ ﾟ🌕ﾟ｡⋆*｡ﾟ☄️｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾

Alien partner who is constantly amazed and appalled by human biology. 

You crack your knuckles in front of them once and they look at you with the most horrified expression.

You don't react in immense pain so obviously you're fine but this poor soul thinks you actually just broke your bones out of nowhere 😭. 

They can hear your heart beat and are absolutely fascinated with the way it speeds up and slows down. 

They like how it speeds up when they get closer and talk lower so they do that pretty often. They like how it slows down when you go to sleep, they find the slow rhythmic thumps very soothing. 

They'll constantly ask you questions about your species whenever a question pops into their head. 

"What are these for?"

They gently brush your eyelashes with their finger as you lay on their chest one morning. You don't open your sleepy eyes when you respond. 

"Keeps dust out of our eyes." 

There's definitely a better answer you could've given but that's all you have the energy for right then and they seem to be satisfied with that. 

Just imagine an alien partner who is so openly enthralled by you. They can't help but hold your cheeks and stare into your eyes, absolutely amazed. 

"Do all human eyes look like yours?"

You manage to actually respond, voice soft to match theirs,

"They come in a few colours but everyone's eyes are different." 

"Yours is the most beautiful colour I've ever seen."

They say while gazing into your eyes as if you hold all the stars in the galaxy in your pupils.

⋆｡ﾟ🪐｡⋆｡°｡*⋆｡ﾟ🛸｡⋆｡ﾟ｡⋆ﾟ☄️｡⋆°

[soaked-doors]

it’s that time of year again

[frankenbuggee]

“It would be rather fine to possess such an enduring affection.”

Part 2

[momenalmdhoun]

Happy New Year 🎊 🎉

🌟 Our campaign is vetted by 🇵🇸 @/gazavetters List at #291 🍉🍉🍉 We are currently at €1111 out of €5000 first goal - please consider donating to my Ezzdeen and helping us reach our goal as quickly as possible‼️

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[sparemoon]

RELEASE THE DA2 VARRIC ROMANCE ENDING BIOWARE

[casasupernovas]

Remember ages ago when I said Freema did an interview talking about Martha and what she was and wasn't happy with in regards to the story? I found it!

Transcript:

Interviewer: ...Do you still think about her? How do you think about Martha in the year 2019.

Freema: Ah yeah I just did a convention with David [Tennant] recently actually and he said something that um, I hadn't heard before, and he was asked about that relationship between the two chatacters and he said 'I think that the Doctor wasn't fair on her' and I sorta looked at him and I was like...I've never heard your take on that before because I knew at the time you know she was...for me there was definitely a kind of beat that they struck on that stayed maybe a little bit too long. It was the unrequited storyline an I think they stopped exploring her as a fully rounded human being in light of that and Russell [T. Davies] did say you know, it's important to him though that people can sometimes see that...you know love doesn't always have to be reciprocated and it's okay to kind of...most of us probably have that in common that we have unreciprocated...emotions than reciprocated and I was like no that's cool I get that but people also tune in for escapism and for romance and all of the magic and the, you know, the imagination so sometimes to be like grounded back down into hard truth isn't very attractive. *Laughs* So I kind of felt like she got stuck a little bit amd when people ask me if if I would go back it would only be to explore her as a fully rounded person more and she had so much going on and then it got stuck for whatever reason. But I had the best time and I feel like there's so much more potential to that person.

[eqt-95]

a new kind of romance, pt 1

🕯️ | s'mores

Kara had been talking about graham crackers.

Correction: she’d been talking about s’mores which were currently scattered in various states of completion across a very polished and very expensive coffee table because Lena Luthor, genius, billionaire, and the most thoughtful very best friend in the whole world set up a bunsen burner in her living room while the three magical ingredients were delivered lightning fast when Kara, nostalgic and sharing about her favorite Kryptonian dessert, explained s’mores were the most comparable earth treat. 

Then she dove into a very impassioned and detailed history of graham crackers.

Which was very in character.

What was also in character was how she managed to eat no less than twelve s’mores at a rate that challenged the poor little bunsen burner’s flame power.

So absorbed by her own explanation, she failed to notice the weight of cushions shift next to her until a thumb brushed against Kara’s chin. 

Voice screeching to a stammering halt, eyes widened, and cheeks flushing the color of the forgotten flame, the Girl of Steel could do nothing but watch as a very soft Lena, clad in sweats (Kara’s) and a scooped neck sweater that hung low and revealing (Lena’s), crawled into her personal space.

She crawled like it was the most normal thing in the world. Like it didn’t send Kara’s heart sky-rocketing with uncontained and undefinable excitement.

And then.

Then.

The pad of Lena’s thumb rubbed at the skin just to the left of Kara’s mouth with focused intensity while her own mouth broke into the tiniest grin of adoration. And before Kara could process any of it, the touch was gone and the digit slipped between Lena’s perfect lips and against her swirling tongue. 

“Marshmallow,” Lena explained when her thumb popped out, slick and cleaned of the sugary threads that had just been shellacked across Kara’s face. She settled back into her side of the couch, snatching a blank graham cracker to munch on before asking, “You were saying?”

And, golly, Kara didn’t have a clue.

- - - part 2 | purple purple part 3 | zippers part 4 | frosting part 5 | could we? wood we?

[balu8]

New Romances #11: My Empty Promise

by Alex Toth

Pines

[swordmaid]

sun goes down 🌟

astarion x tav commission for @/alays.version over on instagram. she’s consoling him after burning in the pier 😔🫶

[smeagles]

someone met gerard at a movie theater again i can’t believe this

vampsneverhurtu on twitter

[bevsi]

happy birthday Gerard Way 👻