Work Text:
Catra is at a party.
Not by choice, but because Scorpia decided she really needed Catra to wingwoman her as she talked to Perfuma between pauses in the pounding music and illegal shots.
She would rather be home right now, and that was saying something.
(Maybe not home.)
(She amends it to “somewhere that isn’t full of people that think of her as an arrogant bitch”.)
(Maybe that includes being at Adora’s apartment.)
Her hand around the flimsy plastic cup is too sticky with sweat for comfort, an unsettling mix of anxiety and the fact that this party is the literal earthly equivalent to hell.
“Wildcat!” Scorpia yells in her ear just as there’s a break in the music, making her jump slightly as the… whatever the hell was in her cup sloshes over the rim and splatters on her hand.
She turns around to find Scorpia with her jacket dishevelled and a cup of clear liquid that is definitely not water as she beams, pointing ecstatically at Perfuma across the room, sitting on the tattered couch - that somehow isn’t covered in stains already - looking calm as she chats to Mermista as if it was a Wednesday morning yoga class instead of college party that consists of 90% dumb jocks who just want an excuse to get hammered.
(Catra doesn’t want to be here, there’s no point in pretending that she does.)
The taller girl looks over to the couch and her eyes brighten even more as she looks at Catra expectantly, waiting for her to guess what just happened, oblivious to the way her bright purple lipstick is smudged and is noticeably more pink than it was when she picked Catra up.
“Let me guess, you finally kissed her?” she responds, a smirk hiding the genuine gratitude she has at the fact that Scorpia took the hint at last.
“Nope!” she shouts above the new song (and it’s freaking Paramore), incredibly happy for just telling Catra that she didn’t kiss the girl she had been pining over for the last three months. “She kissed me !” she says too excitedly for the way she’s swaying on her feet.
“Congrats,” she says dryly, “but do you think you could sit down? You’re going to topple over any minute, Scorp.”
“I would,” she smiles, verging on the edge of drunkenness, “but I need to tell you!”
“Tell me what?” she responds, with no more enthusiasm than this probably deserves.
“ Adora’s here!” she reveals with a senseless smile, leaning her head on Catra’s shoulder even if she’s a good foot taller than her.
(And maybe she should’ve shown more enthusiasm. Adora deserves much more than a sarcastic quip.)
“Wait, what?” she asks, genuinely confused, because Adora had been planning on staying in tonight. She had told her over their third rewatch of How I Met Your Mother . She remembers because Adora sat her head in Catra’s lap as she raked her fingers through-
She remembers because Adora told her a couple of days ago.
“Yeah! I saw her upstairs with Bow and Glimmer! And, oh my God, Wildcat, have you seen Glimmer's hair? Why won’t my hair go sparkly like that,” she pouts as she runs her fingers through her stark white hair. She‘s too preoccupied with her “lack of glitter” to notice that Catra is purposely leading them over to the front door as Entrapta holds it open, headphones around her neck from her party of one in her car.
She doesn’t pay any attention to where they are until she’s sitting in the passenger seat (if she could even call it that, with the amount of modifications the tinkerer had added to it) and groaning that Catra should get in too, that they’ll go to that milkshake stand at the mall (as if the mall would be open at 11:45) and worrying about whether she actually gave Perfuma her number, too drunk to remember that she had scribbled it on a post-it over a month ago when they had been partnered for a biology project.
“Scorp, you’re going home with Entrapta,” she reminds with a furrowed brow, “and I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”
Catra didn’t like adopting Scorpia’s role as the “mom friend” (she’s pretty sure she just gagged when she said that) but if getting her to talk to her crush was reliant on a box of cheap wine, she would deal with it for the night.
Her expression immediately lifts, eyeing Catra suspiciously before she looks back at the house, eyes lighting up in recognition. “You’re going to find Adora-!“
Catra-
Catra knows where this is going.
So, instead of listening to her friend positively berate her on her nonexistent feelings (as far as Scorpia knows) for Adora, she shuts the car door and shoots Entrapta a look that says - with no room for misinterpretation - “take her home and don’t let her have anything that isn’t water to drink”.
Digging her hands in the pockets of her jeans, she resists the urge to run upstairs, find Adora and pull her by the hand out of that house, going somewhere more quiet so her head is only throbbing from the alcohol and not the strong base of whatever song Frosta is playing from the speakers for shits and giggles.
(She isn’t too good at resisting that urge.)
Sea Hawk is passed out on the stairs of the frat house, crumpled in a heap that Catra has to step over, cringing as he lets out a mumble of “Adventure time!”
She’s pretty familiar with the layout of the house, mainly thanks to its affinity to hold rangers every Friday night without fail, but she still finds herself opening doors that she would rather remain under lock and key. She searches for nearly five minutes with no results, about to give up and just call Adora when she hears a maniacal screaming of the lyrics to “You Belong With Me,” slurred and almost unintelligible from the bathroom.
It isn’t Adora (and thank God because Catra was actually hoping to spend some time with her that she would remember in the morning) but she can tell from the piercing encouragement of “Yes, Glimmer!” that it’s Sparkles and Arrow, and in a state like that? Adora wouldn’t be leaving their side.
Slowly pushing open the door in case someone is slumped against it, her eyes quickly meet those of Adora (and if her breath hitches slightly at the sight of them - because even after all this time, she can’t stop herself from thinking wow, how are her eyes that beautiful - no one needs to know).
“Stuck on babysitting duty?” she remarks idly, watching Sparkles try to turn on the cold water tap for the bath that she and Arrow boy are laying in. She darts over before Adora can even move off of the toilet lid that she’s sitting on, shoulders hunched as she holds her chin in her hands.
“Designated driver, but same difference,” she laughs back, watching Sparkles and Bow try - and fail - to get out of the slippery tub before they give up all together and start drinking from whatever Glitter had in her bag.
“Damn, you really blew off finishing season 6 for this?” she jokes, hiding the way her eyes wander down Adora’s torso and lay for a minute too long on her waist, a strip of toned skin peeking out between the dark blue denim of her jeans and the pearly white of her tank top.
She shoots a reproachful grin at her, somewhere between genuinely sorry and amused. “I was planning on staying in, but then Glimmer called me because they had pregame drinks at her apartment and didn’t think Bow could drive,” she explains between playfully annoyed looks at the two.
Swiping at Sequins hand when she tries to snatch Catras purse, murmuring something about her flask running out, Adora rises off of the plastic toilet seat and encircles her hand around Catras wrist, pulling her into the hallway and down the stairs until the stench of axe body spray is replaced with that of cool late night air.
“Don’t you need to drive them home?”
“Look at you, being all responsible,” Adora teases, hitting Catra lightly on the arm as they distance themselves from the party, the splash of the pool and drunken yells growing quieter with every step. Catra glares at Adora with no real venom behind it, before she answers “They have the go ahead to crash wherever, so I’m officially off duty.”
Catra reaches over for her hand before she can think of a reason not to, clasping it in her own and pulling her onto the sidewalk, ignoring the way her chest tightens and her face feels slightly warmer. She grabs onto a streetlight, swinging herself around until she comes to face Adora again, “Hey, Adora?”
“Yeah?” she replies as she looks up from the sidewalk.
Catra grins, a hint of rebellion sparking in her eyes, “How about pancakes?”
Adora returns her smile, looping her elbow through Catras as she pulls her along through the street with cracks in the pavement, tinges of green edging out from the bland grey of the concrete. “You had me at hey.”
*.*.*.*
“The usual?” Spinnerella asks, pulling out the notepad from her pocket even though all three of them know that she won’t need it.
“Yup!” Adora confirms, picking up the menu and glimpsing through it, regardless of the fact that they both never differ from their order.
“Number 1 with banana and number 6 coming right up, ladies,” she says before leaving the table to tell Netossa that “our two favourite customers are here!”
Catra picks at the cracking leather of the booth seats, humming along to the tune playing on the jukebox. “Why were you at the party? Don’t you have classes tomorrow?” Adora asks, tearing the top off of a straw wrapper as Netossa drops their milkshakes off, not pulling it out quite yet.
“Scorpia said the only way she was going to ask Perfuma out was if I went with her,” she scoffs lightheartedly.
Adoras eyes meet hers, and Catra feels her heart do that weird fluttering thing that she didn’t think it could do anymore. It’s sweet, for a moment, when they’re just looking at each other with tired smiles and half-closed eyes, until Adora blows through the straw and sends the white wrapper flying into Catras face.
“You’re literally twelve!” she hisses back, before partaking in the immaturity herself. Adora bats it away from her face, smearing some of her lip gloss onto her chin when she does.
Catra doesn’t do feelings. (See earlier- “people think of her as an arrogant bitch”) She doesn’t do them. Scorpia asked her once if she had ever been to therapy, and all she received in response was an incredulous laugh and an eye roll, because Catra? Tell someone about all of the messed up shit that happened when she was living with that bitch? She was considering calling an exorcist to examine Scorpia at one point.
She didn’t know that habit carried over to… other feelings until she started looking at Adora like that. Like she was the only person in the room, like she was fresh air and Catra was suffocating. She couldn’t see Adora that way. She couldn’t allow herself to.
Adora was the first person to ever look at Catra and see something worth saving. Catra still isn’t sure what she saw, but Adora trusted her in a way that no one else had.
Maybe she’s looking a little too much into it for them being 9 years old and making a papier-mâché copy of a volcano, but theirs was the best in the class, and she refused to hear any arguments from Lonnie on the topic.
Nothing ever changed, and that was why her relationship with Adora was reliable. Same middle school, same highschool, same college, some of the same electives. Adora didn’t change or turn hot or cold. Adora was just Adora. She was the Adora that complained about Razz not knowing how to text properly, the Adora that never let herself eat a meal without some sort of fruit. She was the girl that washed Catra’s hair when she got too much sand and sea water in it at the beach, the girl that invited her home with her family every holiday.
Catra wasn’t allowed to break that.
If she broke it and Adora never looked at her in the same way again-
Catra doesn’t know what she would do.
“Number 1 with banana and a number 6,” Spinnerella says as she sets the plates down, pushing the money that they had set on the edge of the table back down to them with an accusatory look.
“Catra, Adora-“
Netossa pops up from behind the divider separating the kitchen and the rest of the diner, “You don’t pay here.” She says it with a glare so deadly, it’s enough to get Adora to push the coins off of the table and into her purse.
“Okay, we get it, we have best customer perks,” Catra deadpans as she picks up the silverware and slices through the fluffy pancakes with bacon and maple syrup, Adora soon following her example.
“So,” she asks between mouthfuls of crisp bacon and sticky syrup, “Dumb and dumber gotten into anything recently?”
“I know you like them,” she teases between long draws from her milkshake, “but anyways, Glimmer poured half a bottle of glitter on herself before we left.”
“Number one, I tolerate them,” she says, the look in her eyes betraying whatever coldness the statement held, “and number two, how the fuck did she find glitter in a college apartment?”
She supposes it makes more sense as to why Scorpia was almost sobbing at the revelation that Glimmer's hair actually sparkled. “I don’t know,” she replies, “Bow probably had it left over from Prom invites.”
She remembers the Prom fiasco well, Bow coming to Catra of all people to help with finding the “perfect glitter to put on an electric purple poster board?” because Adora wasn’t deemed trustworthy enough to be consulted without spilling everything to Glimmer. It earned the name “fiasco” to Catra because Adora had asked her. Adora. She had assured her it was “just as friends” because neither of them had been asked by anyone else, but it launched Catra into a state of panic that she, admittedly, wasn’t the best at concealing.
Yeah, this whole “crush” thing (and it feels wrong to call it that, but she can’t think of anything else) had been going on for… a while, to say the least.
“Was she singing Britney Spears or something in the fucking bathtub?” she asks, revelling in the way Adora stops with her fork halfway to her mouth, eyebrows raising in shock. She knows the answer of course (even Catra can admit that her songs are pretty good) but the cynical gleam in Adora’s eyes is enough to make her burst out laughing.
“I’m sorry, but this friendship is over,” she states between Catra’s loud cackles, setting down her napkin on the now empty plate and getting up to leave, avoiding eye contact and looking down her nose at Catra. She’s halfway to the door before Catra darts up too, yelling a quick goodbye at Netossa and Spinnerella as she picks up what Adora had left behind on the table.
She sprints to catch up with her, roaring laughter around her all the while, and when she catches up to Adora she’s met with a light shove on the arm and deep glare accompanying a beaming smile. “I told you, I cannot be friends with someone who doesn’t know her Taylor Swift songs!” she reprimands, golden hair glinting under the smoky glow of the street lights.
“So, want to go back to my place?” Adora asks when they’ve both composed themselves, still gasping for breath. The walls of Catra’s stomach flutter for a brief moment before remembering that it’s a joke. Of course it’s a joke.
“Shit, Adora, if you wanted to get together all you had to do was ask,” she drawls, hiding her light blush with a dumb joke. She ignores the way the shadows falling on Adora’s face make it appear as if it turns slightly rosy at the remark.
“…You're such an idiot,” she sighs with a laugh, swiping some rainwater off of a bench as she goes to sit down.
“You could say that,” Catra says as she sits down beside her, her leg brushing up against Adora’s, “or you could call me inspiring, gorgeous, amazing… the list goes on, Adora.”
“Asshole.”
“You love me,” Catra teases back, not stopping to think about what those words mean before she says them.
Adora’s breath stops for a moment, before she tilts her head back onto the back of the wrought iron bench, closing her eyes as Catra peers at her curiously. “It’s a week until graduation.”
“Yeah, I’m aware,” Catra laughs.
“It’s so… weird. I remember our highschool graduation, Catra.”
“I’d be concerned if you didn’t,” she taunts before realising that Adora is serious. She’s twiddling her thumbs and swinging her legs back and forth, them brushing against the splitting cement of the sidewalk. “What’s wrong with that?”
“It‘s all going so fast,” she sighs with a wistful chuckle, raising her head to look Catra in the eye. “Like, in four years, we’ll be looking back on this like we look at highschool.”
“So?”
“Things are changing, Catra. I… I don’t like it!” she groans, and Catra can feel that there’s something in her words that Adora isn’t telling her, covered by frustration and bitterness.
When Adora’s eyes meet her, she knows it. “What’s wrong?” she asks, and she genuinely cares about the answer.
“It’s nothing.”
“No, it’s not,” she scolds as she turns around to view Adora more clearly. “What are you not telling me, Adora?”
“I don’t want us to change. What we have… it’s so, so fucking special to me, Catra. And I’m absolutely terrified of me doing something that’ll change it. Because…” Adora trails off, closing her eyes and running her hands through her hair that’s down in soft waves unlike her usual ponytail, “Because, Catra, life happens. And I’m scared of doing something to wreck us, because I don’t know how much longer I can stop myself!”
Her eyes are welling with angry tears as she stands up and starts to shift her weight to her left foot, right and then left again. Catra’s pretty sure she just heard her heart shatter, because now? Now she has even less of a chance than before. Minus numbers as Entrapta would put it. Adora doesn’t want change. She doesn’t want anything to move forward or revert back. And so, Catra can’t tell her anything. She would rather live with this gaping hole in her core than make Adora as distraught as she is right now.
“What makes you think anything will change?” she questions, and she’s starting to get as riled up as the blonde in front of her is, because what the fuck could be so bad for Adora to be on the edge of a mental breakdown? 20 minutes ago, they were arguing over song lyrics, and now Adora is clenching her teeth in a display of anger that Catra knows isn’t directed at her.
“Catra,” Adora whispers, and Catra wants to get up and dry those God awful tears from her eyes, “I’m going to fuck everything up. I know I am, and I don’t think I can stop myself anymore.”
“Whatever shit you’re talking about, I’ll not hate you. You know that,” Catra pleads, and she swears to whatever higher entity is out there, if Adora doesn’t know that she would rather die a hundred times over.
Adora stops grasping at her hair, turning her attention from whatever thoughts were catapulting through her head and to Catra.
“I’m in love with you.”
Adora looks as if she’s about to burst into fresh sobs, looking Catra dead in the eye and silently asking “please don’t hate me”.
It’s all so laughably simple now. Adora stares at her with a look so broken while Catra tries to stifle a cackle. She rises up from the bench, running at her before she swings her arms around Adora’s neck and presses her lips to Adora’s, her soul filling with electrifying warmth as the blonde's expression changes from shock to disbelief to loving excitement.
When Catra pulls away, her hands tangled in Adora’s hair, Adora stares at her with her vibrant blue eyes and laughs. Catra wants to record it and replay it for the rest of her life.
“What-?” she asks, as if she touches Catra again she’s going to fade away into nothingness.
“I’ve loved you for four years, you absolute dumbass! ”
“Oh,” Adora whispers, more to herself than to Catra, “Oh!” she yells, grinning in ecstasy.
“Don’t make a big deal about it .” Catra mocks before she kisses Adora again. When they break apart, they’re both wearing equally in awe grins.
“Oh my God!” Adora exclaims, and Catra is scared for a moment that she’s going to realise it’s all a mistake, that kissing Catra was an accident that shouldn’t have happened. “I can't believe you like me! That is so embarrassing for you.”
Catra splutters for a moment before pouncing on Adora. And if it turns into a kiss, no one needs to know.