A small breather

Mia was trying her absolute hardest to not hyperventilate. She was sat on the bed, able to cross her arms at least now that she wasn’t in a position for Laurel to stop her, and was completely naked in a room with three other people.

Dinah and Laurel were sat by the computer. Zoe was still standing but, after looking around for a bit, shrugged and wandered over to Mia’s side, sitting down next to her on the bed. She smiled. Mia blushed.

And the next image on the screen loaded.

“Huh,” Laurel said, sounding disappointed. “That’s not as fun as I was hoping.”

Mia squeaked.

It was true, it wasn’t as revealing as a lot of the other photos had been. Rather than a nude, she was in a swimsuit, this shoot clearly themed. There was a pool behind her, and then her, stood, facing away from the camera and stretching her arms up over her head. Her blonde hair, dry, fell freely over her shoulders and covered one of the suit’s straps.

It was a one-piece, so that was theoretically good news. It was certainly more decent than every other photo. It was just still… a lot.

The deep red of the material didn’t help matters; that colour never looked exactly innocent, and it formed a stark contrast with the pale of her skin. Her arms were bare, it arched down to bare most of her back, and absolutely none of her legs were covered, the border between scarlet and skin striking. It accentuated as much as it covered, and the sheer amount it seemed to ride up made Mia fidget at the half-recollected memory.

“Swimsuit,” Zoe said. “Have to admit, that isn’t what I expected to see next given what I walked in on.”

“You don’t have to sound disappointed!” Mia said.

Her ass being almost out wasn’t what made her feel the most awkward though; that would be the fact that, if she remembered the context behind this shoot accurately, it wasn’t a suit that the magazine had provided. The idea had been to show off her normal swimwear.

Which, in of itself, Mia had to admit sounded fine. The problem remained her memories of her old life.

Star City as she recalled it, the crime-ridden districts of her other life, wasn’t exactly known for its pools. She knew how to swim from her childhood, Nyssa was a thorough teacher, but that was as far as it went; excluding when she was around family members, or may-as-well-be family members, she’d never worn less than a full outfit.

So the fact this version of her paraded around non-photoshoot settings in something that left her legs and butt so bare (and Mia was hoping she was wrong about the memory of that suit’s cleavage), that still left her embarrassed. It was a different kind of embarrassment to just seeing herself bared completely, but even while it was less revealing, it suggested a regularity that a photoshoot didn’t.

“Guess we can’t really do that pose,” Dinah said. “Not the same without the swimsuit.”

“Good!” Mia said.

She crossed her arms a little more tightly, face already red. Dinah looked back; Laurel hadn’t looked away.

“Yeah, skip,” Zoe said. “I’m only here because I thought there’d be fun ones.”

“Hey!” Mia said.

“She has a point,” Laurel said. “Though I don’t mind taking my time. Not like we need pictures to show us how cute she is.”

“I thought this was to help me,” Mia said, biting her lip. Laurel coughed.

“I meant it helpfully,” Laurel lied.

Mia made eye contact, daring her to say it again. Laurel rather quickly looked anyway. Any retort from Mia, meanwhile, was cut off as Dinah clicked the way to the next photo.

It was another swimsuit, this one taken out on the pool. A bed-shaped pool float drifted out into the blue, and Mia lounged out atop it, lying on her back and closing her eyes, facing up. The real eye-catcher was the suit itself though: gone was the relatively modest red one-piece.

This one was black, and it technically was still in one piece, it just wasn’t particularly decent. It seemed more an accumulation of straps than a garment; a strip of black looped around the back of her neck, and went down. Two strips went down oner her chest, each one tightly pulled over a nipple, rendering her legally decent, despite the fact that the center of her chest was exposed, as was the swell all around her breasts.

The parallel lines moved further apart, joining with the back of the suit; that seemed to just be two more straps that had gone down her back, also from the connecting point on the back of her neck. The thin lines created pseudo-panties, pulled up high so as to keep her hips bare, and to do very little to give any impression of modesty. The crease at the top of her thigh could be seen, and the swimsuit didn’t cover it for a breath more; if it wasn’t for how well-shaved she was, a few hairs would certainly have been in view.

The almost-nude past Mia lounged casually back on the float, her arms drifting off the plastic and into the water, fingers trailing in the pool. It looked relaxing; it also looked far too revealing.

And Mia remembered the key fact about this shoot; they were all suits she’d owned. She’d worn something like that in public, at a beach or a pool or, well, somewhere that wasn’t just her room. She was really glad her memories were kind of murky, because she didn’t want to have any vivid recollections of that on top of everything.

Mia tore her eyes away from the expanse of pale skin on display, only to find Zoe staring down at her crotch. Mia yelped, and quickly slid a hand down there to cover her core.

“Zoe!” Mia yelped.

“Oh! Er,” Zoe stammered.

Laurel and Dinah looked between the two. Laurel couldn’t quite hide a smirk, even if she did briefly glance back at the computer screen. Dinah at least had the decency to wait until no one was looking at her to remind herself of what the revealing costume looked like.

“I was just noticing something,” Zoe said.

“Could really do without you noticing anything about my crotch,” Mia said.

“Not like that!” Zoe said. “Just, no tattoo in this universe, you know?”

“Upper arm,” Laurel said. “I still see it.”

She leant back, reaching out to let her fingers touch Mia’s bicep; an arrowhead had been marked in ink over the firm muscle. Mia squeaked and pulled back at the contact, partly because of how close her upper arm was to her chest thanks to her efforts to cover up.

“Yeah, but it’s still different,” Zoe said.

“It is?” Laurel said.

“Different universe,” Mia said. “I still got one here, it’s just not the same. So we can move on now.”

“Oh, no, I want to hear about this,” Laurel said. “What tattoos did you have?”

“Does it matter?” Mia said. “Rebellious teenager, what did you expect?”

“Just curious,” Laurel said.

“Couple on her right arm,” Zoe said. “A few words, and a black star. A queen bee on her left shoulder. And my- er, a word on her hip.”

“Zoe!” Mia hissed.

“Guess that makes sense,” Dinah said. “I’m guessing the socialite didn’t become a cage-fighter – wasn’t that where the black star thing came from?”

“Yeah, right,” Mia agreed quickly. “So anyway…”

She reached for the mouse again, baring her breasts to do so. Laurel quickly took her wrist to prevent her, preventing her from moving on to the next picture and distracting everyone.

“Your what on her hip?” Laurel said to Zoe. “And how did you even see that anyway?”

Zoe coughed. Mia struggled for a moment to reach the mouse, then reluctantly gave up and pulled back, lifting her arm back over her chest.

“Does this have anything to do with making this less embarrassing for me?” Mia said.

“Might do,” Laurel said.

Mia reddened. The Canaries still looked at her expectantly.

“Look, fighting ZETA soldiers meant a lot of adrenaline, that’s all,” Mia said. “Zoe, er… helped. Any now that’s out the way we can move on to…”

Laurel’s eyebrows rose. Mia’s voice trailed off, apparently resigned to the fact that this topic wasn’t going to be over so quickly.

“Thanks for that Zoe,” Mia whispered. Zoe at least had the good grace to look self-conscious.

“It was just weird seeing you without my name,” Zoe said.

“Oh come on, you needed to specify?!” Mia yelped.

Zoe flushed.

“The two of you, huh?” Laurel said.

“No!” Mia said. “Not like that. It was just… stress relief. Stop looking at me like that!”

“What part of ‘my sister is Sara Lance’ do you need explaining?” Laurel said. “No judgement. Just surprised, that’s all.”

“And getting her name,” Dinah said. “That sounds serious.”

“It wasn’t!” Mia said, growing even redder. “I got a lot of ink. That’s just who I was. Or am. Or was. Urgh! Whatever.”

“Um,” Zoe interjected. “It wasn’t a big deal, actually. My fault. Just a dumb bet. But the rest, um, yeah.”

Laurel eyed Mia speculatively, gaze lingering for a few seconds. Mia was too distracted to really noticed, adjusting her position slightly; suddenly her embarrassment was renewed. She was really, really glad they hadn’t expected her to do more poses for the swimsuit pictures.

“Doesn’t exactly feel like you’re being helpful,” Mia said.

“You’re the one that wanted to adjust to having your nudes out there,” Laurel said. “You agreed to this.”

“To the photos, not prying into my personal life!”

“She has a point,” Dinah said. “You’re naked, revealing things that embarrass you – and you shouldn’t feel embarrassed by it by the way – two three fully-dressed friends. Once you make it through this, why would you be embarrassed by anything else?”

Mia opened her mouth to respond, then paused.

She was pretty sure something there was wrong. She just also wasn’t in the most logical of headspaces just then. Instead of a witty retort, she contented herself with adjusting her arms and pressing her legs together a little more, cheeks flaming.

“Can’t really stop now anyway,” Zoe said.

“Don’t tempt me,” Mia muttered.

“Think about it,” Zoe said. “If you’re embarrassed now, how much worse would it be if you left now and realized you’d gone through all this for nothing? May as well keep at it until you feel comfortable.”

“Yeah, because you have no ulterior motives in wanting me like this,” Mia shot back.

“That was another Earth, doesn’t count!” Zoe said.

(Laurel and Dinah meanwhile cleared their throats).

“I… suppose you have a point,” Mia muttered. “Fine, keep going. Next picture. Now. Please.”