Archive of Our Own ^beta

Superboy frowns, and becomes vaguely aware that he's on the ground. He feels . . . spilled, as if everything has fallen out, like there is nothing left to him at all, and even opening his eyes is almost too hard. Not that there's much point, because when he manages he can't even see—everything is bright, shining yellow.

M'gann goes flitting through the racks and comes back with a short dress, pink and swishy and light, and Superboy looks at it and . . .

It looks how he feels, he thinks; he feels pink and swishy and light, like his feet could step right off the floor. He tries it on and Wally and Artemis both sputter at M'gann for picking it out but Superboy just looks at himself in the mirror and it's a pretty dress, pink and swishy and light and pretty and . . . and he doesn't really know, besides that.

 ***

Supergirl loops around [M’gann], still relishing the feeling of motion without gravity attached, and flips backwards in the air once, just because she can. And then again, because why not, and again and again and this is exactly what dancing is supposed to be, she thinks, this is exactly what she is supposed to be, and when she remembers to glance back to M'gann, breathless and brighter than she ever remembers feeling, M'gann is watching her and smiling just as wide as she is herself.

“I like this,” Supergirl says, kicking her feet in the air, floating up higher, and M'gann smiles wider and reaches up, and Supergirl grabs her hand in both of her own and pulls her higher, takes them both up.

Her bare toes touch sand and Supergirl crumples, collapsing to her knees and burying her face in them, in [Superman’s] cape, wanting to bury herself and—and—

 ***

M'gann comes up with a frothy white minidress, and he wants to yell at her, wants to snap and lash out—SuperBOY I am a BOY stop making me feel like it's okay if I'm NOT!—but she is smiling and the dress is . . . it's so . . .

It looks like it weighs nothing, while everything else in the world is too heavy to bear.

Superboy puts it on

Kaldur is at the bar in his high-necked shirt and arm warmers and little shorts and skinny blonde cornrows and he is so . . . something odd speaks in Superboy, he isn't sure what, but what he thinks (she thinks, NO, there IS no she) is “handsome”.

Kaldur is handsome.

 ***

The chalk on the floor isn’t a pentagram, but it’s something like one, and there’s a place for each of them in it and a bigger place in the center. Supergirl looks down at her place and the confusing mish-mash of symbols around it and wants so badly to step out of the circle and lift off the floor and get away but--

Kaldur is definitely better at sewing than she and M’gann are, though. The skirt he makes is perfect, gathered just right to flare when she flies but short enough not to get in her way in a fight; the cape that Supergirl and M’gann take turns hemming looks fine from a distance but is definitely a little crooked at the bottom. It’s shorter than it was, though: not the too-long thing Superman wrapped her up in and she cried all over--not a heavy weight to live up to, but something made for her, something that fits her.