4. Chapter 4
Lena expects to hear from Kara right away - some kind of we need to talk text or something. Instead, the first she hears from Kara is a series of incomprehensible texts.
Several of them are in what Lena soon realizes is jumbled Kryptonian and Lena’s suddenly grateful she’d kept the coding in her phone that allowed it to read the alien language - without it, Lena’s sure the messages would just be indecipherable images. But even so, some of the words are hard for Lena to understand. She can’t decide if it’s because her Kryptonian is rusty or because the messages are riddled with typos that are throwing her off.
The texts are so confusing that if Lena didn’t know better she’d say Kara is drunk. But that’s...impossible. At least as far as Lena is aware. Kara’s body metabolizes liquor in a completely different way than humans and they’d never run into anything that could get Kara remotely tipsy. The only reason Kara ever drank in college was out of habit, an action bred out of a desire to fit in, to seem like any other normal human college girl.
A few of the texts seem to be random facts about giraffes - they sleep standing up lena - and some are just typo-ed affection. The yr so nice makes her eyebrows raise. The monel knows how to drnk drinks makes her a little worried. It’s followed by another series of emojis. Lena’s been getting better at deciphering what Kara’s trying to say when she sends the little images, but this one is far beyond her comprehension.
are you okay? Lena sends. It seems like a reasonable, friendly thing to ask.
Kara doesn’t respond right away, but the text comes in later: alex is flying me dnt worry
Lena has no idea what that means, but she doesn’t inquire further.
--
The attack on the research lab in the Arctic isn’t front page news, but Lena has “suspicious alien related or otherwise” activity flagged on her computer and she sees the blurb in an e-mail dump midday Monday.
Thorul Arctic Research Station. An animal attack from the way it’s being reported, but Lena reads between the lines. Most of the researchers stationed there died, apart from the head of the unit. Sole survivor. It’s suspicious enough to get pulled by the program she built to comb through news headlines and she idly wonders if it’s something Kara is involved in.
Even after Lena had first found out about Supergirl, she hadn’t really connected everything together. Kara and the thing Supergirl was reported on doing, the people she saved, enemies she conquered. She knew it was Kara, of course, but there was something detached about it. Like it was Kara, but it wasn’t . Having seen Kara in person, having seen her in her supersuit looking at Lena like she always has, it’s more real, more personal. She had always been worried, but a distant one, a “I hope everything’s okay out there” kind of worry.
The worry that etches itself into her ribcage now is worse, more intense. A worry she hadn’t thought to have for Kara before. She’s only been reunited with Kara for a short time, but every time she reads a headline or hears about an attack, she sees Kara flying towards it fearlessly, thinks of what could happen. And there are so many attacks - so many news alerts of fires, robberies, aliens fighting Kara in the streets.
It’s perhaps an odd time to think of her older brother, but she does. The almost crazed look in his eye when she last saw him.
The day he was apprehended, the Daily Planet ran a massive front page, full color photo of him snarling, opposite Superman. They were surrounded by pure chaos, destruction, the remnants of their last stand off. Lena remembers so vividly the tear in Superman’s suit, just above the crest. The way Superman’s usually oh-so-immaculate hair had been looser, more wild. His eyes, glowing with a kind of rage that almost rivaled the look in Lex’s.
That’s the thing people forget, Lena thinks. Lex almost succeeded. He almost won. Superman was just one mistake away from being killed. The world was one slip up away from being dominated by Lex Luthor. It comforts her, only slightly, that Lex is in maximum security (and then some) prison.
It does nothing for the dreams in which Supergirl replaces Superman in the pictures.
Lex may have been almost single-mindedly obsessed with the Man of Steel, but Lena knows it was only a matter of time before Supergirl would start to figure into his plans. Had he succeeded, Kara would have surely been the next target in Lex’s crosshairs. She can almost hear what her brother would say had he given any thought to National City’s Super. His voice resounds in her brain with that maniacal lilt it had started to take in the end. What’s better than killing one Kryptonian, Lee? Killing two.
All it would take was one mistake, one missed detail. Kara flies headfirst towards a problem without thinking and the next anyone knows she’s on the ground, broken and battered, power drained. Lex could have done it, and now - everyone knows what Lex did to Superman in the streets of Metropolis. Kara could be flying in to something so simple, and there could be someone there with a sliver of Kryptonite, and Kara would be done for.
It only gets worse on days where she doesn’t see Kara, doesn’t hear from her. Even on the days where’s she’s received small little emoji-laden texts, there’s something more reassuring about being able to see her in person, see for herself in some sort of tangible way that Kara is okay. Without it, the worry keeps her awake at night, and its intensity ratchets higher the longer she’s in National City.
On the worst of those nights she tends to sneak back into L Corp, almost invisible in her jeans, sweatshirt, and baseball cap, and tries to get some work done. The R&D lab is usually empty and she sits down there at a workstation, poring over ideas and projects, desperate to channel her energy into doing something good for the world, something to erase her brother’s legacy, to minimize the threat he still seems to pose to Lena’s world, the threat that keeps her up at night. It settles the unease just a little to have something to do with her hands and something to distract her ever-working mind.
Sometimes Lana Lang is still there and she’ll smile at Lena warmly, put on a fresh pot of coffee the minute she sees her.
The day the news of the attack at Thorul breaks, she gets woken up that night from a dream of Kara getting attacked by some horrific ice monster, and comes in to find Lana still there, tinkering with random projects and blueprints.
“You don’t have to stay,” Lena tells her, but accepts the offered mug. It’s well past business close and most of the engineers that are usually scattered about the department have headed home to families and lives. She’d rather not be the reason her head of R&D gets no sleep.
“I was working late anyway,” Lana says with a shrug, sliding onto a stool next to Lena and sipping at her coffee.
“You shouldn’t work so late,” Lena chastises on reflex.
Lana laughs, leans an elbow on the table next to them and smirks at Lena. “That feels slightly hypocritical,” she stage whispers.
Lena rolls her eyes and boots up her laptop. “I’m the boss, Lana. I’m allowed to be hypocritical.”
“Of course, ma’am,” Lana says and it’s dripping with such feigned obedience that Lena lets out a little chuckle. “Yes, Miss Luthor.”
Gone is the almost strained way they had acted around each other before. It’s been replaced by a sort of casual friendship borne from the many nights Lena’s spent in lab acting as nothing more than a simple engineer working after hours. She doesn’t feel like CEO Lena Luthor down here. Not like she does in her office or behind her desk. She just feels like Lena, and Lana responds to that without pause.
It’s easy in a way Lena’s not used to. Lana teases her lightly, but still with some distance, and Lena allows it, sips at her coffee and lets Lana make suggestions about whatever project Lena brings up.
There’s something comforting in feeling like she has an unspoken ally on those nights, but Lena can’t fight the feeling that Lex was once an ally too.
--
A text comes in the next day when Lena’s just gotten home, around six, her pencil skirt and blouse traded for soft joggers and a t-shirt. It’s from Kara, and it’s comprehensible this time, and not in Kryptonian either.
are you at home? can i come over?
Kara lands on her balcony a few minutes later and Lena can’t deny there’s a sense of relief to see Kara standing there - whole and alive and smiling at her with a crooked grin.
“Hi,” Lena greets when she opens the balcony door.
“Hey.” Kara steps inside, red cape flowing behind her and hands on her hips.
It’s been almost three days and they haven’t talked about the incident in Lena’s office. The memory of it sits in the pit of Lena’s stomach, easily avoided in the work-filled days before, but much harder to ignore now when Kara is right here, in her apartment. It’s all she can think about as Kara perches against the arm of her couch, looking at Lena with an open expression.
“How are you?” Lena asks for lack of anything better to say, anything not related to her office couch.
“Tired,” Kara answers honestly, and Lena sees it then. Kara doesn’t just look tired. She looks exhausted. In fact, she looks abnormally exhausted. It beats away any thought Lena had about confronting their emotional moment days prior and replaces it with worry.
“Are you okay?” Lena strides forward across the distance between them to step in front of Kara, tipping Kara’s chin up with a finger and searching blue eyes.
“Yeah,” Kara says, making no move to resist Lena’s touch. If anything, she sags towards it, leaning forward a little and smiling at Lena. “There’s this...I don’t know what it is really, but something happened and now this guy has some kind of like, thing inside him and when he touches me he can...feed off of my powers.”
“The research lab in Norway,” Lena says. “The strange attack there. It’s related?”
“How did you know that?”
Releasing Kara’s face, Lena steps away a few feet away and smirks. “I have my ways.”
“You’re scary, you know that?” Kara says, but it’s clearly teasing, just a slight upturn to Kara’s lips. It makes Lena smile.
“I’m a Luthor.”
“You’re Lena,” Kara corrects with a crooked smile and it tightens Lena’s chest so suddenly that she struggles to swallow against the feeling.
Clearing her throat, she paces away, sits on a chair on the other side of the room. “So what happened? Your powers got drained, but you’re okay, right?”
“Nothing some good old yellow sunshine can’t fix,” Kara says. “Though it’s strange. He’s not just draining me. He’s like drawing my power into himself, evolving. Mutating really.”
“Like a parasite.”
“Yeah. An alien parasite. Something ancient we think.”
“So in theory, he could take enough power that you’d-” She mentally chokes on the thought, her words cutting off abruptly. This is a perfect example of the things that keep her up at night: an energy alien parasite perfectly content to munch on her ex-girlfriend’s wealth of powers.
“In theory,” Kara replies, looking unaffected by such an option.
A thought occurs to her suddenly, interspersed with the images of Kara having her powers sucked out of her. “If he’s actually a parasite, or at the very least behaving as one…”
Kara’s face grows more serious, her expression expectant. “Yeah?”
“You could always try giving him more power or energy than he can handle. Overload his system.”
Kara hums thoughtfully, looking away from Lena for a moment. “Interesting.”
“Something to think about, at least,” Lena says. “Just be careful, please.”
“Always,” Kara answers happily, with a matching smile.
Kara is just about never careful, but the grin on Kara’s face makes Lena laugh. It’s a better reaction than what she wants to do - convince Kara to run away with her until they’re so far from all the ugliness in the world that nothing can touch them. It’s a too-familiar, painful wish, to shelter Kara and to avoid the world around them.
Silence stretches between them and Lena lets her eyes trail over Kara’s imposing form. It’s such a strange juxtaposition. There Kara is. Draped in the trappings of her superhero role. And yet, the relaxed posture and the unsure twist to Kara’s lips makes Supergirl look nothing like National City’s Protector and everything like the Kara Danvers Lena remembers from college. She tries not to classify that Kara as her Kara, but that’s the only way she can think to describe it.
Kara’s voice breaks her from her musing.
“So, Alex is…” Kara looks like she’s struggling to find the words, her brow furrowed and mouth twisted. “Alex is gay. Apparently.”
Lena blinks at the sudden and unexpected subject change. “And?”
Kara’s gaze shoots up at that, bores into Lena’s. “And? And Alex is gay.”
“Oh,” Lena says, realizing suddenly what Kara isn’t saying. “And this is a surprise.”
“What do you - what - of course this is a surprise!” Kara sputters.
Lena laughs a little. “Okay, right, yeah. Completely. I am incredibly shocked to hear such a thing.”
Kara stares at her, jaw dropped a little before she rolls her eyes. “How is this so obvious to you and was such a surprise to me? You haven’t even seen Alex in four years.”
Lena shrugs. “I wouldn’t say it’s obvious. It’s just not shocking. It’s there if you’re looking for it.”
“But Alex has only ever dated men!”
Lena shakes her head at Kara’s incredulity, still laughing. “Yes. Clearly you don’t remember the disaster of a boyfriend she brought home to Thanksgiving that one year.”
“Disaster?” Kara asks like she doesn’t remember the ridiculously uninterested expression Alex carried throughout all of dinner nor the way Alex all but shoved her then-boyfriend to the ground on reflex when he slid his arm around her during the evening’s board game. The memory seems to come to Kara then, but she merely counters with, “Well Kevin was kind of the worst.”
Laughing, Lena smiles. “Sure, but then remember when your neighbor Ashlyn came over to bring us pie?”
Kara’s eyes go wide in recollection. “That mocha cream pie,” she breathes out with a certain amount of reverence.
Lena barely resists putting her hand over her face. That would be the only thing Kara remembered about the encounter. “I was referring to how excited Alex got to see her.”
“It was mocha cream pie, Lena,” Kara says with a seriousness Lena knows she’s not faking.
“It was gay, Kara,” Lena corrects, biting at her lip to hold back the laugh that wants to keep coming out. Kara looks entirely put out at the idea of not realizing this fact about her sister.
“How did I miss that?” Kara asks with a resigned sigh.
It charms Lena a little to see Kara in her supersuit, shoulders sagging and exasperation all over her face, looking like how she used to when something about Earth absolutely confounded her. “It was never something you needed to know,” Lena answers. “So you never thought about it.”
“And what? You needed to know it?” Kara asks, with suspicion in her tone.
“Not necessarily,” Lena answers with bemusement. “I just had an inkling. I definitely know when I’m meeting another gay woman.”
“She’s my sister,” Kara argues. “I should have known.”
“Maybe Alex wasn’t ready to know herself. Much less have anyone else be aware,” Lena offers with a shrug.
Kara sighs, twists her lips together, looking adorably confused. “Maybe.”
“It’s that cop she was with, right?” Lena asks, remembering seeing them at Roulette’s fight club. “Detective Sawyer?”
Kara’s eyes narrow. “Do you have psychic powers you never told me about?”
“No,” Lena denies with a soft chuckle. “I just see details you miss sometimes. Call it human intuition.”
Lips pursed, Kara shakes her head. “Yeah. Maggie. Alex is…” Kara smiles. “Super into her actually. It’s kind of cute. I’ve never seen Alex crush on someone so hard before.”
“Good for Alex,” Lena says, feeling a fondness for Kara’s protective older sister.
“I hope it works out for her,” Kara replies and Lena tries not to hear the wistful edge in the words, like Kara’s not really talking about Alex and Maggie.
“You’ve had quite the week,” Lena observes, hoping to change directions.
“No kidding,” Kara laughs. “And to top it all off, Mon-El has been working for street gangs to shake people down for money. Using his dumb leaping and punching powers, obviously.”
Something sours in Lena’s mouth at the mention of Mon-El, but she ignores it. “That’s not good.”
“I don’t know why I thought I could trust a Daxamite of all people,” Kara spits, a disdainful curl to her lips.
Lena shrugs, not too invested in defending Mon-El, but not loving the stubborn look on Kara’s face either. “People change,” she offers, but Kara just shrugs. “You never know.”
“I guess.”
It reminds Lena suddenly of the incomprehensible texting adventure they went on just a few days ago and she can’t stop herself from asking suddenly, “Were you drunk the other night?”
Kara kind of startles back, eyes widening. “What?”
“The other day,” Lena repeats, arching a brow and crossing her arms. A little smirk takes hold of her mouth before she can stop it. “When you sent me some...interesting text messages.”
A hint of a blush dusts Kara’s cheeks, the tips of her ears going a little red even as she cringes just slightly. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Lena says with a laugh. “It was just strange. I was worried. What happened?”
“So it turns out I can get drunk,” Kara says with a shrug. “There’s a bar we found that serves some off world liquor. Super toxic to humans, but for me it’s just like...really strong alcohol.”
The scientist in Lena is intrigued. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Kara sighs and rolls her eyes a little. “Mon-El basically bribed me into doing it.”
At the second mention of the Daxamite, Lena can’t stop the expression that shadows her face, but thankfully Kara doesn’t notice, too invested in staring across the room towards the expansive balcony windows.
“How was it? Being drunk for the first time?”
Kara chuckles, turns to Lena and shakes her head. “Weird,” she answers. “I broke Alex’s car door off accidentally. Drunk me isn’t so good with remembering the super strength.”
Lena winces. “I’m sure she wasn’t too pleased about that.”
“Not so much. Didn’t help that when I got home I watched a Too Cute marathon on Animal Planet and texted her about puppies all night while she was basically doing my job investigating the attack in Norway.”
“Good thing we didn’t discover any sort of alien booze in college then,” Lena muses wryly, thinking of the kind of destruction a drunk Kara Danvers could have gotten into. “Could have been dicey. You probably would have blown up my dorm room somehow.”
“True,” Kara agrees, smiling. “Or made you watch shows about puppies all night.”
“You already did that,” Lena laughs. “Without any alcohol.”
Kara pulls a face and laughs as well. “You liked it,” she teases and Lena’s heart flutters.
It occurs to Lena then that they’re talking about basically everything except what they should be talking about - the office incident as she’s come to refer to it as in her head. Just thinking about it again makes Lena tighten her arms over her chest and clear her throat. Kara must realize something similar because she sits up suddenly, mimicking Lena’s pose and looking over at her with an ominous expression.
“Listen,” Kara starts with and Lena tenses, feels what’s coming and isn’t nearly emotionally prepared enough for it. “I know we need to talk about...the thing that happened.”
No we don’t, Lena thinks. Talking about their heated office makeout session isn’t something Lena thinks she can entirely handle right now. It doesn’t matter so much that Kara’s right. They do need to talk. Kissing in the middle of strained emotional outbursts doesn’t exactly solve any of their problems. In fact, all it likely does is confuse the issue entirely - but she still doesn’t want to, is enjoying this rapport. “Okay.”
“I’m not trying to avoid you.”
Lena’s brows come together. “I didn’t think you had been.” If anything, Lena was happy that she didn’t have to talk to Kara right away. Not with how vivid the memory of their kissing sat in her brain for the entire night and well into the next day. There’s no way she could have gotten through a conversation maturely with that in the forefront of her mind.
“There’s just, like, a lot happening, right now,” Kara says and the exhaustion is evident again in the way Kara looks down at the floor and tightens her jaw. “I mean, all these weird Cadmus videos, this parasite, Alex…”
It seems like Kara has some sort of Big Speech prepared and Lena’s not sure she’s ready for it. They kissed. It was a mistake. That’s the whole of it and Lena’d just like to get back to the road to being friends again, without having to navigate the emotional minefield that is talking about it.
“Kara,” Lena offers softly, before Kara can say anything else. “Why don’t we just forget it?”
Kara’s head snaps up so rapidly Lena jumps a little. “I don’t want to forget it.”
“I think it’s best we do,” Lena says, carefully, even though she knows she won’t forget it herself. “What happened was-”
“Don’t say it was a mistake,” Kara says, dropping the words between them so quietly that Lena feels herself pull forward to catch them all.
“It’s not helping either of us become friends again.”
“Lena,” Kara says, drawing her name out incredulously, staring at her like she can see straight through her and Lena feels her heart rate start to pick up a little, hates the idea that Kara can probably hear it.
“Look, even if we were to -” Lena shakes her head, struggling to find a way to explain herself, settles for gesturing between them. “We can’t just crash back into each other like the last four years didn’t happen. We’re different people, Kara.”
“You keep saying that,” Kara replies with clear exasperation and a hint of disbelief.
“Because it’s true,” Lena insists. Kara might look exactly the same, smell the same, feel the same, but it has been four years and that’s just simple fact. Lena knows she’s not the same as the college version of herself and they haven’t spent nearly enough time together for Kara to know if Lena’s still someone she’d want to be with. “And you’re right. Our lives are crazy right now. I mean, my brother keeps trying to kill me from his maximum security prison. You’re saving the world from parasites. There’s a secret anti-alien organization gaining momentum. We don’t have the time to try to hash things like what happened out. So let’s just forget about it.”
“I can protect you from Lex,” Kara says, and she looks suddenly staunch, looks a world away from the tired girl who had just been slouching against Lena’s couch cushions. It brings a rush of heat through Lena’s chest, makes her feel like she can’t breathe.
“I know you can, Kara,” Lena says, then sighs, rubbing at her forehead. “But you have to agree. Both of our lives are a mess. Neither of us have any business trying to do this right now.”
Kara huffs a little with impatience, looks like she might argue the case for a little bit, then looks at Lena carefully. Whatever she finds there seems to settle her.
“Fine. Let’s forget it,” she says, but each word sounds like it’s being ripped out of Kara’s mouth.
“So, why don’t we get back to focusing on being friends again?”
“Friends,” Kara repeats with a disbelieving, amused tone wrapped around the word. It sounds just like Alex in the car ride home after Roulette’s club, when she called them both fools.
“Kara,” Lena sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose and sagging back into her chair.
“Sorry,” Kara says softly, and Lena looks at the tired lines around Kara’s eyes, wants to lead them both back to her bed and run her fingers through Kara’s hair until the visible evidence of her exhaustion fades. Her hands war with her head, wanting to reach out to Kara, knowing the girl would come if she did so.
“Don’t be,” Lena tells her. “Go home. Get some rest.”
Kara stands, looking resigned, and paces over to Lena’s balcony. Lena stands to follow. “Okay. You’re right.”
“And you really should stop flying onto my balcony,” Lena jokes. “People will start to talk.”
Kara doesn’t laugh and the lack of response sits heavy in Lena’s chest. But then, Kara is turning suddenly, looking at Lena with a pleading expression. “Drinks Friday? With my friends?” Kara pleads in a hasty scramble of words, calling back to Lena already having agreed.
The look on Kara’s face unhinges something in Lena’s heart and she feels helpless to deny Kara anything else tonight. “Okay.”
“Yeah?” A look that could only be described as hopeful flashes onto Kara’s face.
“Sure,” Lena says with a smile.
“I’ll text you,” Kara murmurs and she moves so close that Lena’s sure she’s going to kiss her. Except Kara just snatches Lena’s hand and squeezes it warmly.
Lena tries not to think about how the gesture is somehow so much more intimate than the feeling of Kara’s lips against her own, and squeezes back.
“Fly safe,” she says, just after Kara jumps up and away into the air.
--
“It’s going to be weird,” Kara says one night, when they’re walking back to Lena’s dorm hand in hand.
“What is?”
“Being away from you for the whole summer.”
The reminder of Lena’s upcoming summer plans - a prestigious internship at the family company - and the fact that it will separate them for the next three months pains Lena a little, but she smiles through it and tries to be reassuring. “I’ll try to come visit. And, I hear there’s this new thing called cell phones and the internet.”
“Don’t tease me,” Kara pouts, bumping her shoulder against Lena’s slightly. It still amazes Lena how Kara manages to be gentle with all the superhuman strength flowing through her body.
“I’m sorry,” Lena says, tightening her fingers where they’re intertwined with Kara’s and gripping at Kara’s forearm with her free hand. “I’m going to miss you too. It will definitely be weird.”
They get to Lena’s building and Kara pulls Lena to a stop, fidgeting with the corner of her glasses as she does. Lena’s eyes follow the motion and she rubs the skin of Kara’s forearm, the muscle there tense.
“You okay?” Lena asks softly, wondering what’s got Kara so suddenly nervous. It could just be the reminder that they’re about to spend three months away from each other, but she wouldn’t think that’d make Kara nervous. Just sad.
“I have something for you,” Kara says, instead of answering Lena’s question. “Like a present.”
Lena’s eyebrow arches and she laughs a little. “You got me a gift?”
“Yeah,” Kara replies, nodding rapidly. Lena brings up the hand she’s holding and presses a warm kiss there in an attempt to soothe. It doesn’t seem like it works, but Kara still smiles.
“Why are you nervous about my gift?” Lena asks with a teasing lilt to her voice.
“I’m not,” Kara denies, but her eyes are looking everywhere except at Lena and she can’t stop readjusting her glasses and Lena knows better.
“Is it like,” Lena waggles her eyebrows a bit. “A sexy gift? Because then we should probably go inside.”
An attractive blush beats across Kara’s cheeks and she rolls her eyes. “Lena,” Kara complains with a little whine.
“Just making sure.” Lena leans up a little, pressing closer to Kara and kissing her cheek, smiling at the sheepish demeanor Kara’s suddenly adopted. “So where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“My present.”
Kara’s hand shoots into her pants pocket and Lena tracks the motion, wondering what kind of gift Kara could have gotten her that would fit in a pocket.
“Okay. So, like, we’re going to be far away from each other in a few days.”
“Not that far,” Lena laughs. Lena will be in Metropolis, for the start of the summer, at least, and Midvale isn’t that far away at all. It’s further than their dorm rooms on campus, but it’s not across an ocean kind of far.
“Far enough that I won’t be able to hear your heartbeat,” Kara says softly and Lena’s laughter cuts off immediately.
“Kara,” she says softly, squeezing her girlfriend’s fingers and trying not to remember the first time Kara mentioned being able to hear the sound of Lena’s heart. Sometimes at night she can still smell gas and fire and hear the hoarse sound of Kara’s voice screaming her name.
“And so I wanted to give you something that would remind you of me - of us - and still had like a practical use.”
Puzzled, Lena looks again to where Kara’s hand is still stuffed into her pocket. “What is it?”
It takes a few seconds, but Kara slowly pulls her hand out of the pocket and dangles a small velvet jewelry bag between them, looking at Lena carefully.
With delicate fingers, Lena takes the bag, releasing Kara’s hand so that she can open it and peer inside.
It’s a watch. “It’s gorgeous,” she murmurs, smiling at Kara, who just watches her, face neutral.
At first glance it doesn’t look to be anything but a watch. Gold band. Pretty pearl face. But upon closer look, Lena catches sight of an inscription on the inside of the face. The familiar shapes that make up the alphabet of Kara’s native language.
Some of the words she recognizes immediately. The ones like always and love make her heart flutter. There’s a word at the end that she can’t quite translate. Her brain scrambles through her lexicon of Kryptonian in an attempt to understand it.
“I’ve never seen this word,” Lena says, picking her head up to look at Kara.
If Kara looked nervous before, now she looks downright terrified. “We don’t really have a word for girlfriend in Kryptonian,” Kara answers on a shaky breath. “So I improvised.”
Lena thinks to interrogate her girlfriend further, but Kara’s fingers are snatching the watch back and pressing a button on the side Lena had assumed was purely for setting the time.
“If you use this here,” Kara explains and they both watch as the face pops open suddenly to reveal a second red button inside. Lena looks at it with wide eyes. “One hit on this and it’ll let me know you need me.”
It occurs to Lena suddenly what Kara means and she feels a sudden burn prick in the back of her eyelids. “Kara,” she says, putting her palm over Kara’s and smiling. “I’m just going to Metropolis. For what’s essentially a desk job. I’ll be fine.”
“And you were just going to lunch when a car ran a red light and almost killed you,” Kara points out, turning her hand over to squeeze Lena’s fingers.
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“Lena,” Kara sighs, shaking her head. “That’s not the point.”
“What is the point then?”
Kara’s lips thin for a moment. “It will make me feel better. Knowing you can get to me if you need me.”
“I always need you.” The responding smile pulls so brightly across Kara’s face that Lena feels her own mouth stretching in reaction. “Even when you worry too much.”
A blush blooms across Kara’s face and Lena kisses against it. “You’re teasing me again.”
“Thank you,” Lena says softly, pushing forward to kiss Kara again, this time on the lips. “I love it,” she murmurs against Kara’s kisses, melting into the way Kara immediately wraps an arm around her waist and picks her up a little.
--
Lena hears the crashing and screaming first. It sounds distant from her top floor office at L Corp, but the sound still breaks through the open balcony door behind her and she startles, dropping her pen onto her desk.
She can’t see anything from her balcony, but she can guess the general direction of the chaos. It doesn’t take long to use her computer and tap into police camera feed - there are enough of them along the downtown blocks that she should be able to see something. On her phone, she pulls up a local police scanner Twitter feed to see if anyone is talking about what’s happening.
Eventually she gets to the right video feed in time to see a huge brutish looking thing stalking down 16th Street. It must be the alien parasite that Kara had faced earlier and she watches as it engages first with a young man - Mon-El, she realizes when his face flashes clearly enough for her to recognize him - and then later with a newcomer in silver armor.
Kara is nowhere to be seen. Lena tries to fight the instant spike of worry that cuts into her as she observes Kara’s absence. Kara’s fine, she reminds herself. If Supergirl were seriously hurt Lena would know. National City would know.
It’s not seconds later that she sees Kara come speeding into the scene, knocking the alien off his feet and slamming him into the pavement.
When Kara takes the monstrous thing down, slamming what looks like plutonium into his body, Lena feels a wave of triumph rush through her and she barely contains a little fist pump at the sight.
She texts Kara later, just a short good job tonight.
Much later, when Lena’s home and getting in bed, Kara responds. couldn’t have done it without you.
--
The texting continues as if their office incident had never happened and nothing is different between them. Just two old friends reconnecting.
On Wednesday Kara sends her about sixteen different recommendations for sushi. you still like sushi, right? Lena does, in fact, still like sushi, even though it reminds her a little of the three months she spent in Tokyo right after after their breakup. Of course, she replies and considers adding, we should have some together, but stops herself.
Late afternoon on Thursday, Kara sends her about five consecutive pictures of a random dog - each of them just slightly blurry, shaky even, like Kara tried to take the picture while flying. There’s no text apart from a dog! and Lena laughs. Cute, she sends back and Kara just sends twelve red and blue hearts back.
A random animal fact comes on Thursday: did you know turtles can breathe through their butts? Lena stares at it for a good minute before responding with why do you know that? She can easily imagine the proud smirk on Kara’s face when she gets a I know things Lena in reply.
In the middle of a development meeting, Kara sends her another selfie. This one of Kara holding a stack of what looks like seven pizza slices in her hands while she makes a maniacal open-mouthed face towards it. Lena has to stifle her laugh with a cough, but she must not be entirely successful because the entire table turns to her and goes silent. It’s a good thing that Luthor intimidation has always been something she’s excellent at; it’s not hard to drop her face into a heavy glare, eyes glancing at every occupant of the room until they all look away. Everyone except, of course, Lana Lang, who just shoots Lena a tiny smirk before carrying the meeting on, pitching a new nanotechnology she read about in a recent science journal.
Under the safety of the table, Lena looks down at the picture of Kara one more time, sends back a pizza around the world must fear you, before closing her phone and focusing on her work.
--
“You’re getting faster,” Lena says with disbelief as she enters the data into an encrypted spreadsheet on her laptop.
“Really?” Kara leans over her shoulder and looks at the data as Lena types it in.
“Really,” Lena murmurs back, leaning forward to double check her numbers.
“Awesome,” Kara breathes out, kissing Lena on the cheek quickly before tumbling away from her to lay down against the grass of the open field.
They’re about an hour outside of campus and civilization has been left behind them. All that surrounds them are a line of trees to one side and then open fields as far as the eye can see. Lena knows there’s a lake about a mile west and a farmhouse two miles east, but they’re as safe as they can be from prying eyes. Which was why she had picked the place months ago for Kara to test out her ever-growing abilities.
“Good job,” Lena praises and Kara smiles happily at her, crossing her feet and putting her hands behind her head.
“Thanks.”
“You’re actually almost on par with Superman’s numbers.”
Kara sits up a little, leans on her elbow to look at Lena. “How do you have Superman’s stuff?”
Focusing on encrypting the files on her computer with Kara’s data, Lena doesn’t even spare Kara a glance. “I’m from Metropolis,” she answers absently.
“That’s not really an answer,” Kara replies and it sounds so serious that Lena pulls her head up and looks at where her girlfriend is staring at her, concern in her features.
“Sorry,” Lena says with a short shake of her head. She closes her laptop and sets it aside in the grass before leaning back against the tree behind her. “I just meant that I grew up with Superman around in some capacity.”
“Do you know him personally too?” Kara asks with clear confusion. “How would that have not come up?”
“No,” Lena says with a laugh, kicking her foot a little against where Kara’s elbow is planted in the ground. “Lex is just a little obsessed with him.” It sounds weird when she says it like that, but it’s the truth. As Superman grew in popularity, Lex became fascinated. It quickly became a hobby of his to study Superman and his abilities in the interest of harnessing such power for humans to protect themselves. He may not be around forever, Lee, Lex had said to her once.
“He is?”
“Yeah,” Lena says with a shrug. “He’s gathered some data in the last few years. It’s not exact of course, but it’s a pretty good base level.”
“Why would he do that?” There’s a thread of suspicion in Kara’s tone that Lena bristles as. As if Lex has some ulterior motive for studying an alien. She reigns in her natural reaction to snap. It makes sense, she reminds herself, for Kara to be naturally concerned about any scrutiny towards herself or her cousin. There’s a reason, after all, that Lena drove them to this field hours away from school.
“Because we can’t rely on Superman to save us forever,” Lena answers, hearing her brother’s voice in her head. “He thinks there’s a way to recreate some of Superman’s abilities for humans, that way we can learn to protect ourselves.”
It takes a few seconds, and Kara’s expression shifts between confusion and worry before settling on something more casual. “So I’m really almost as fast as him?”
“Yeah,” Lena says with a soft laugh. “You are.”
--
Mid-Friday afternoon Kara texts with a location and a reminder that happy hour starts at four - pretty sure you can leave work early if you’re the boss the text says.
It goes against just about everything Lena believes in about work ethic, but she can’t stop thinking of the defeated way Kara looked in her apartment, of the quiet pleading in her voice when she asked Lena to come. So around 3:30 that afternoon she packs up her desk and tells her assistant she’s taking the afternoon off. It’s Friday anyway and her assistant looks pathetically excited at the prospect of an early night.
The location they’re set to meet is just the middle of a sidewalk in downtown and Lena looks around, confused. There isn’t really a bar in sight. She texts Kara to let her know she’s here and moments later Kara is jogging around the corner and waving her over.
“What kind of bar are you taking me to?” Lena asks with a laugh when Kara leads her down a side alley, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her.
“The super secret alien bar I told you about.” Kara sounds appropriately excited about it, but waves of hesitation pass through Lena. She’s sure that a Luthor is the last person an alien wants to see while enjoying their afternoon drink.
“Kara,” Lena says with a careful tone of apprehension. “I don’t really think I should be walking into an alien bar.”
“Why?”
Lena doesn’t know how to respond to that. The answer should be obvious. “I’m kind of a known entity,” she settles on and realization seems to dawn on Kara’s face.
“Lena, it’ll be fine,” she says, tugging Lena forward a bit. It’s not a strong tug, but Lena stumbles anyway, following after Kara towards a metal door at the end of the alley. “This place is a dive bar before it’s an alien bar. Trust me. Everyone’s so involved in their own stuff they won’t even notice you. Plus, I’m here. I’ll keep you safe if anyone tries to do anything.”
Lena doubts Kara’s sunny disposition, but knows Kara would without a doubt protect her, and walks with her into the small establishment. She immediately feels out of place in her immaculately pressed blouse and trousers and tugs her purse up higher on her shoulder to fight the feeling. Kara releases her hand as soon as they get inside and it only makes the feeling worse.
But as it turns out Kara is mostly right. They walk through the bar towards a table in the far corner and Lena only pulls a few glances their way. Not exactly the riot she expected.
At the table, Alex is setting down a tray of beers and shots, handing them out to two other men. The first is immediately familiar to her and it only takes her a moment before she places it. James Olsen.
The other man turns as they approach and his eyes go wide as soon as he spots Lena. It’s the stranger from her gala. This one must be Winn, Lena thinks and fights a smile at the way his eyes dart between them.
“Hey guys,” Kara greets before gesturing towards Lena. “This is Len-”
“Lena Luthor,” James says quietly, with a smile caught somewhere between polite and wary. He extends his hand and Lena takes it, refusing to react to the tight way he grips at her, just on the gentle side of painful. Lena remembers him when he still worked for the Daily Planet. Remembers the articles and pictures that were run about her brother at the height of his madness and during his trial.
Nonetheless, she smiles back at him. “James Olsen,” she says enjoying the way his smile falters just a little at Lena’s complete refusal to be intimidated. “Your reputation precedes you. I didn’t know you knew Kara.”
“We work together at CatCo,” Kara explains, but there’s something overly hasty about the way she says it and Lena turns to her with a little furrow to her brow. “Actually, James is the new Cat Grant.”
Lena inclines her head back towards James. “Congratulations.”
“Winn,” the other man at the table interjects suddenly, extending his own hand which Lena takes. “Winn Schott. We kind of already know each other.”
“Nice to officially meet you, Winn,” Lena says as Winn vigorously shakes her hand.
“You know each other?” Kara asks, glaring a little at Winn until he lets go of Lena’s hand.
“Remember? From the gala? We totally saved everybody,” Winn says with pride and Lena smiles indulgently
“Winn went into hiding under the stage where I had planted the black body field generator,” Lena adds and Kara purses her lips as she looks at both of them, settling on Lena with a heavy stare. Kara’s disapproval practically radiates out of her and Lena gives her a little eye roll.
“Science bros!” Winn exclaims, extending his fist towards Lena. She has no idea why he’s looking at her expectantly, but doesn’t have a chance to respond because Kara reaches out and swats at his fist.
Alex clears her throat suddenly and Kara jumps a little, looking at her sister. “Oh, right. And Alex, my sister,” Kara offers, pointing to her sister as if they’ve never met.
Lena nods at Alex, who nods back.
They take a seat and Alex passes her a beer with an inquiring glance. Lena hasn’t had beer since college. Her lips thin at the idea of drinking it now. “I think I’ll go for something stronger, actually,” Lena says hoping it doesn’t sound rude. Or snobby.
Alex gives her an almost impressed look, hidden by a smirk and Kara stands suddenly. “I’ll get it,” she offers before scrambling towards the bar.
Lena’s left at the table with Kara’s sister and her two friends looking at her critically with varying expressions. She wishes she had a drink in front of her if only to have something to do with her hands.
Not a single one of them says anything, but Lena can feel Winn, next to her, open and close his mouth like he’s trying to figure out something to break the ice.
“Nice weather today,” Lena comments casually, but all she gets are noncommittal hums as an answer. She sees Alex nearly snort into her beer.
Kara comes back with a cocktail and sets it in front of Lena, setting her own stout glass of clear liquid on the table next to it. Lena eyes the drink Kara’s got for her and something settles low in her gut. It’s a Manhattan, that much she can tell just by the color and the lemon twist.
When she takes a sip, it’s just how she likes it - cherry whiskey, dry vermouth, twist of lemon for that little something extra. Kara remembers her drink order and the knowledge of it tightens an invisible band around her chest.
“Good?” Kara asks her, eying her with a clear request for approval.
“Perfect,” Lena admits before taking another long sip and looking away from the pure expression of happiness Kara exudes at her answer. When she looks around the table she wonders if anyone noticed that Kara ordered her a drink without asking what she wanted, but they all seem involved in their own beers.
“So, Lena,” James says politely, looking up and propping his elbows on the table. “How are you enjoying National City?”
“It’s not that much different from Metropolis,” she answers and he laughs a little.
“I miss Metropolis sometimes, though,” James says and he seems somewhat more comfortable than his initial reaction to her. She can’t tell if it’s genuine or just for Kara’s sake. She assumes the latter based upon the way he keeps glancing towards Kara as he speaks.
Lena digs inside herself to try and remember how socializing works when you’re actually trying to be friends with someone. “I especially miss Uncle Franky’s,” she says and James’s expression shifts to something pleasantly surprised, his grin widening just a bit.
“No way. You were not an Uncle Franky’s girl,” he says and Lena shrugs.
“A guilty pleasure, I must admit.”
James laughs, but Kara leans forward in confusion. “What’s Uncle Franky’s?”
“It’s an old hot dog joint,” James explains, still smiling. “Clark and I used to get it for lunch at least once a week.” He laughs again, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, I’m trying to imagine Lena Luthor of all people in that dive and it just-” He makes a vague gesture and Lena smiles.
“Oh, I think I’ve been there,” Winn adds. “I remember they wouldn’t put ketchup on my hot dog.”
“How have I never heard about this?” Kara asks, glancing between them with a clear look of betrayal. Alex takes a sip of her beer and looks away, clearly distracted by something across the bar. Lena glances over and sees what keeps capturing Alex’s attention - one NCPD detective racking up a set of pool balls. When Alex catches her eye for a brief second, Lena smirks a little but Alex doesn’t even react other than taking a deep breath and looking down at her lap.
“Why would you have heard about it?” James asks, laughing at Kara.
“As my friends, you should be informing me of any interesting restaurant you know of. For research.”
“Well, now you know,” Lena tells her, just barely resisting placing a placating hand on Kara’s forearm where it’s braced on the table.
Kara whips her gaze to Lena. “Is it better than Nighthawks?”
Lena laughs at the mention of their favorite hot dog spot in college. “Is anything better than Nighthawks?”
“I’m pretty sure I still get free hot dogs there,” Kara says proudly and Lena remembers, with some level of disgust, the eating challenge Kara had to go through to win the lifetime of free hot dogs.
She pulls a face and laughs a little. “Don’t remind me. I don’t think I got the smell of chilli out of my nose for days after that.” This time she does reach out and touch Kara’s shoulder, shoving at it lightly in a friendly manner. Kara charmingly goes with the motion, lets herself get pushed to the side just slightly.
The table has gone suspiciously quiet after that and Lena suddenly realizes what she’s said. Her eyes go a little wide and not long after so do Kara’s. She turns back towards her drink and takes a gulp of it. Anything to stop her stupid mouth from saying more ridiculous things. It’s like she’s completely forgotten who she is every time she’s around Kara for more than five seconds.
It’s James that speaks first, eyes darting between them before settling on Lena with clear suspicion. “I thought - Didn’t you just move here? From Metropolis?”
“Yeah, I thought you guys just met,” Winn adds.
Kara and Lena glance at each other. During their agreement not to intentionally bring their relationship history into the light, Lena had said she wouldn’t deny it if asked and she finds herself aching at the idea of it now. Denying Kara’s place in her life has never been something Lena’s grown used to even after all these years. Here, with Kara inches from her, Lena’s positive she wouldn’t get away with it convincingly.
Frankly, Lena didn’t really think it would come up so soon. A ridiculous notion, really. She can’t spend five minutes in a room with Kara without dragging their history up into the present.
“We, uh,” Kara stammers a little, looks at Lena again like she’s waiting for permission.
Lena sighs. “We went to college together.” It’s the truth even if it’s so much more complicated than that. It should be enough to appease the group.
Out of the corner of her eye she sees Alex make a face of pure annoyance and put her beer back on the table. “I’m getting another round of drinks. Who needs one?”
Without waiting for an answer, Alex turns from the table and heads to the bar, leaving Lena and Kara alone with James and Winn.
“You went to college together?” Winn asks, looking between them, confused.
James cocks his head to the side. “And you two-”
“We were friends,” Kara fills in for him with a tight smile. “In college.”
“It was a long time ago,” Lena adds before taking a long sip of her drink.
“You never mentioned that you knew a-”
“It never came up,” Kara cuts him off, looking angry, but Lena knew what would come next. She understands the wariness in James’s eyes. It’s a well known fact that James and Clark Kent are close friends. It’s a lesser known fact that Clark and Lex used to be too.
The table goes silent again and Lena feels tense.
Then Winn speaks, turning to Lena with friendly eyes she’s not sure she deserves. “I heard a rumor that L Corp was working on replacing silicon chips with something based on the behavior of molecules,” he says and it’s such a random divergence from their earlier conversation that it takes a second for Lena to reply.
“If that were true,” Lena says carefully, but she smiles a little. “It’d be a highly classified project.”
“Sure,” Winn says with a cocky shrug. “But is anything really classified?”
The conversations turns into something Lena feels much more capable of navigating. Winn asks her a litany of questions about L Corp’s advancements in technology and she answers those that she can. She catches Alex listening avidly a few times after she returns with new drinks, but as soon as she catches the other girl’s eye, her gaze flits away with a practiced air of indifference.
There’s a TV on the other side of the bar and Lena can sense Kara’s eyes darting over to it occasionally with a look of distaste. Lena turns to see what has Kara so upset, but the TV is merely playing the news, the anchor reporting on National City’s new vigilante - the man in silver armor.
Kara lets out a scoff. “The new guy,” she glowers and Lena laughs a little at the frown on Kara’s face. “Of course.”
“Guardian?” James interjects from across the table. “I thought you said he helped you.”
“He did,” Kara says with a shrug, the words coming out with a tinge of displeasure.
Lena senses the but coming before James even asks.
“I don’t know,” Kara continues, shaking her head. “I just don’t think the city should be putting its trust in him so quickly.”
James defends the vigilante with a kind of suspicious vigor and Lena catches Alex’s eye for a moment, the other woman’s eyebrow twitching just a bit as she sips her beer and listens to James.
“What do you have against the guy?” James asks and Kara laughs.
“Well for starters, why wear a mask? Why cover your face up if you’re on the up and up? I don’t wear a mask.”
“You wear glasses,” Lena says, bumping her shoulder with a teasing smile. “Maybe he doesn’t have the luxury of your brilliant disguise.”
Kara shoots her a look and Lena almost expects Kara to stick her tongue out petulantly.
The table has gone suspiciously quiet and Lena turns to see Winn looking at them with wide eyes. Next to him, James’s gaze is narrowed, darting between them. It occurs to her what she just said. Or rather what it implied.
Before she can say anything else, Winn is leaning over the table towards Kara and hissing, “She knows?”
It takes a second, but Kara rolls her eyes, waves him away with casual ease. “Of course she knows.”
“What do you mean of course?” Winn asks, glancing at Alex who is doing everything she can to seem disinterested. Her eyes roam everywhere in the bar except the table and she sips at her beer.
“She’s Lena,” Kara answers like that means anything to Winn of all people, but it tugs at something inside of Lena that she tries to ignore. Her throat feels uncomfortably thick and James is staring at her like he knows exactly what Kara meant.
Winn moves straight past it, looks to Alex again and repeats the question, “She knows?!”
Alex just looks at him, takes another sip of her beer. “Yes. She knows,” Alex deadpans in a clear don’t fucking ask me about it tone. “Move on.”
“Aren’t secret identities supposed to be secret ?” Winn continues, which Lena thinks is ridiculous considering everyone at the table is aware of Kara’s alter-ego. “This is why Guardian wears a mask,” he adds, looking at Kara pointedly.
Alex sets her beer down on the table, loudly enough that Winn jumps. “Whoever Guardian is, he’s got a sidekick. That’s for sure.”
It’s clear from the way Alex glares at Winn that the conversation is officially over and he seems to accept the unspoken directive, leaning back in his stool and pursing his lips at Alex. “Sidekick,” he scoffs. “Likely a partner if anything.” James laughs at that, evidently willing to move on as well.
Kara leans forward at the table. “You know, my cousin worked with a vigilante once,” she says, joining her sister in moving the attention away from speculation as to why Lena would be in on the Supergirl Secret. “Tons of gadgets. Lots of demons.”
“The Bat,” Lena adds, realizing whom Kara is talking about. It had been all over the papers for weeks. “The man in Gotham, right?”
“Yeah,” Kara says with a roll of her eyes. “Vigilantes are nuts.”
“Or maybe you are afraid of the competition,” James says with a teasing smile and Lena scoffs before she can stop herself. He looks at her, brow raised in question.
“I highly doubt the Guardian poses much of a threat to Supergirl in any competition,” she tells him with the kind of confidence she usually reserves for board meetings and corporate acquisitions.
Kara practically preens at the praise, grinning and sitting up straighter in her seat. It’s an adorable reaction and Lena can’t help but respond to it, smiling in kind even as James eyes them warily from across the table.
Before anyone can say anything else, a loud, “Danvers!” interrupts them and they all turn to see Maggie Sawyer standing a few paces away.
“Hey,” Maggie says with a smile and Lena watches as Alex struggles not to choke on her beer. “It’s been a hot minute. How are you?”
“Yeah, good, yeah. Yeah,” Alex fumbles and Lena fights a grin, Alex’s discomfort distracting her from the emotions of seconds before. Kara scoots closer to Lena almost immediately as if on instinct, shooting her a raised eyebrow look that Lena manages to interpret as pay attention.
“Everybody this is Maggie. Maggie, this is everyone,” Alex introduces, naming them all around the table.
“Oh, the sister,” Maggie says, with a polite grin when Alex introduces Kara. “I’ve heard so much about you from Alex.”
“And I’ve heard all about you,” Kara says, with one of her too-wide smiles that Lena can read so easily.
It must not have gone well, Lena realizes as she watches Kara’s fist clench under the table even as she takes an indifferent sip of her beer. Maggie must notice the frost in Kara’s tone, because she startles just a little, eyes darting to Lena and back to Kara before she turns to Alex and asks to speak with her.
When the two women walk away from the table, Lena brushes her hand against Kara’s arm. A quick, barely there motion, but Kara’s fist unclenches and her shoulders drop into a more relaxed posture. She glances at Lena with a small smile, and it takes everything in Lena to not grab ahold of Kara’s hand underneath the table.
“That looks intense,” Winn comments as he studies Alex and Maggie on the other side of the bar.
“Leave them be,” Kara admonishes.
James, however, is still studying Lena in what she’s sure he thinks is a subtle manner, but she can feel his gaze every time it passes over her face. She has no idea what he’s looking for, no idea what his expression means as his eyes dart between her and Kara.
“So, college, huh?” He says eventually, cutting through the bickering still continuing between Kara and Winn.
Kara’s eyes whip to his and Winn sits back in his seat, looking at Lena again. Lena smiles, undeterred by the critical glint to James Olsen’s eyes. “It was a long time ago,” she says and he seems to be pleased by that answer, nodding just a little with a small smile.
“Wow, I seriously cannot imagine you in college. Like, I know you went, but still,” Winn adds looking at Kara. Kara laughs, pushes her glasses up and twirls a little on her stool. Lena notices, finally, how close she and Kara have drifted, because her legs brush Lena’s.
“Well, like Lena said. It was a long time ago.”
“Only a couple of years, right?” James counters, leaning his elbows on the table and playing with his beer bottle. “Did you guys keep in touch?”
“Four years, actually,” Kara corrects, a hint of melancholy in the way her smile wavers. “Lena graduated early.”
Alex returns to the table before Kara can answer James’s question. No, they didn’t keep in touch is putting it lightly, and everyone’s attention turns to Alex.
--
“I think that went well,” Kara says as they walk out of the bar later that night. It feels familiar, like it’s four years ago and they’re leaving a date at the one nice restaurant on campus. Lena could sling her arm through Kara’s and it’d be like nothing had changed.
Lena laughs a little. “Your friends are nice.”
“Yeah,” Kara says with a little answering laugh. “They can be your friends too.”
“I don’t know about that,” Lena says trying to keep mirth in her voice even as her gut tightens uncomfortably. The idea of Kara’s friends being her friends feels far too much like college, too much like a time when their lives were so intertwined that it was natural for their friends to all be mutual friends.
Everything feels so wildly fragile since that night in her office and just the little sense of familiarity threatens to topple her.
Kara must notice because her chest puffs up a little bit and her chin goes with it before she puts on a smile that Lena knows is forced. “Just saying,” Kara says, shrugging a little. “They like you.”
“They don’t know me,” Lena counters, trying not to scoff at such a preposterous idea as present-day-Kara’s friends liking her. Kara turns to her as if to protest, so she keeps talking. “I’m glad you asked me out.”
It occurs to her from the look on Kara’s face how that sounds and Lena scrambles to correct it. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant-”
Kara laughs dismissively, kicking at something with her foot. “I know you didn’t,” she says softly, but picks her head up to look at Lena with her bright blue eyes. “I’m glad you came.”
“Thanks, Kara,” Lena says softly, and they pause on the street, just around the corner from the alley that leads to the bar.
“For what?”
“For wanting to be my friend again,” Lena replies because it’s true. It’s not like before, but it still feels right to have Kara in her life in some capacity. Like something has been returned to her that she’d forgotten about, or tried desperately to avoid thinking about. “And for being so much better at making it happen than I’ve been.
Kara’s brow furrows. “That’s a dumb thing to thank me for.”
“Nonetheless,” Lena says quietly.
“You’re not the one that kissed me,” Kara says, just as quiet and Lena’s heart thuds so solidly against her chest she’s sure even a human being could hear it. “I haven’t been that good with this friend stuff.”
Lena thinks to add that she was the one with her hand on the zipper to Kara’s suit, she was the one arching against Kara’s touch and pulling her closer, but she doesn’t. Just the memory of it has her skin heating up. She’s afraid to find out what will happen if they keep talking about it. This is why she had suggested they just forget about it.
“That was a momentary lapse,” Lena counters refusing to focus on the way Kara is looking at her like she’s just as lost in memory as Lena is. “You’re still making an effort when I would rather just run, hide, and avoid the situation.”
“That’s not like you.” Before Lena can even respond, Kara’s adding, “And don’t say you’re different now.”
On a deep inhale, Lena puts on a practiced smile, the kind she reserves for particularly stubborn corporate executives. “I merely meant that I’m glad we’re still trying to be friends. Even when it’s not easy. I’m happy you’re still willing to try.”
Confusion crinkles around Kara’s eyes. “I’ll always want-”
“Kara,” Lena interrupts with a dry laugh. “Just say you’re welcome and let’s move on.”
Kara smiles, rolls her eyes at herself sheepishly. “Yeah, okay. Sorry. You’re welcome.”
“Good job,” Lena says, whispering it in a teasing manner. It makes Kara laugh and Lena feels something loosen inside her.
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” Kara asks so randomly that it takes a second for Lena to understand.
“Pardon?”
“Thanksgiving,” Kara repeats. “Do you have plans?"
Lena blinks. In all honesty, Thanksgiving hadn’t really been on her radar. “I’ll probably just get some work done. Take advantage of everyone being out of the office.”
Kara looks completely horrified at the idea and Lena should really have sensed where Kara was going with her initial question, but she’s sure the emotions of the last few hours have fried her normally high brain speed. “Lena, you can’t spend Thanksgiving working!”
It sounds so much like conversations they used to have in college that Lena feels a wave of affection settle over her. “Kara, it doesn’t bother me. You know that.”
“Well it bothers me. You know that.”
“Like always, I don’t know how to help you with that,” Lena replies with a laugh.
“You can help me by coming over for Thanksgiving.”
“What?”
“We’re doing Thanksgiving at my apartment. Alex, Winn and James. You should come.”
“Kara,” Lena starts, but Kara preempts her hesitation with a wide smile.
“It’s just dinner, Lena,” Kara says, as casually as someone can invite their very serious ex-girlfriend to Thanksgiving dinner with their friends and family. “We’re going to eat a lot of food and then play a board game and hang out. Super low pressure. If you can handle the bar, you can handle Thanksgiving. We’ll play Monopoly! You love Monopoly!”
Lena is very certain that happy hour drinks and a family Thanksgiving are two completely different things, but she can’t deny the part of her that misses the feeling of being a part of something during holidays. The last time the Luthors all sat at a table and had a meal together as a family was long before she had even met Kara. Her first holiday with the Danvers had involved Alex flipping the Monopoly board and all its pieces in Lena’s direction, angry at Lena’s beginner’s luck as she had called it.
“Just dinner and Monopoly,” Lena says, looking at Kara’s face. The other woman grins that huge grin that had always set Lena’s heart on fire.
“Just a great dinner with a lot of cookies and then you beating us all at Monopoly,” Kara reassures, reaching out to nudge at Lena’s arm. “I promise I won’t let Alex flip any tables this time.”
“That doesn’t seem like something you could prevent,” Lena says with a wry smile.
Kara shoots her an incredulous look. “Please, I’m Supergirl,” she says in a conspiratorial whisper, ending it with a crooked smile that beats against Lena’s chest.
Lena laughs, shakes her head at her ex-girlfriend. “Okay,” she says on a deep exhale. God, to think people believe she’s capable of Lex’s supervillainy when she can’t stand up to Kara Danvers’s smile.
“Great!”
“Do you need me to bring anything?”
“Just your pretty face,” Kara jokes with a bright grin and she knows Kara doesn’t mean it to be flirty - Kara had never really mastered the very human art of flirtation - but it comes across that way nonetheless. Lena struggles to control a blush.
It’s not that she’s never been hit on or flirted with by people other than Kara, but for whatever reason when it’s Kara saying things like that, Lena feels like she’s eighteen all over again with a crush on her best friend.
“I’ll be there,” Lena manages to get out and Kara nods, clearly unaware of Lena’s inner reactions.
“So,” Kara says, moving her hands to hold them in front of her. “You want a ride home?"
It takes a second for the question to register in Lena’s brain and she almost jumps back from Kara when it does. The last thing she needs to do right now after two Manhattans and an onslaught of emotion is touch Kara, to feel her right there. It’s all so much worse now that they’ve kissed, very nearly did a whole lot more than kissing.
“Thank you, but my driver is right there,” Lena says, pointing towards a black car parked at the corner.
Kara looks over her shoulder at it and shrugs, looking halfway to sad. “Right. Yeah, of course.”
“Have a good night, Kara,” Lena says, smiling.
“You too, Lena,” Kara says and the second it looks like Kara might move in for a hug, Lena bolts to the side and strides quickly for her vehicle.
She doesn’t turn back, doesn’t want to see the look on Kara’s face, just gets into the back seat of her car and takes deep, steadying breaths.
--
Lena’s never been much for parties or going out to bars, but Kara drags her along often enough that she starts to build up a resistance to her distaste. It’s time spent with Kara anyway, and Lena’d suffer through a lot for just that reason. Kara’s friends from astronomy club are nice enough, so Lena doesn’t mind it as much when Kara tells her they’re going to a local campus bar named Legend’s with them on Friday night.
Kara flashes her fake ID at the door and the bouncer looks appropriately skeptical - Kara’s fake is terrible, and she’s pretty sure it’s the same one Alex used in college. Lena stands behind Kara, visible over her shoulder and glares at the bouncer, urging him to recognize who she is and see the threat in her gaze.
After a few seconds of looking at Kara’s ID, the bouncer does finally notice Lena and locks stares with her for a second before handing Kara her ID back and ushering them both inside.
Kara’s friends are all congregated at one end of the bar, huddled around a high top and arguing about what kind of shots they want to take next.
“Kara!” Max greets loudly when they approach. “Lena!”
With an enthusiasm Lena can never seem to match, Kara says hello to the entire group, Lena following behind and repeating the sentiment.
They order drinks and the night goes by fine. It’s not unlike any other time at the bar. Lena leans into Kara’s side and lets her control the flow of conversation while she sips at her drink. Inevitably Max or Aaron will challenge Kara to some sort of challenge - drinking, eating, some feat of strength that Kara will have to fake an inability to do.
They’ll laugh and tell stories and grow louder the more they order shots.
Lena will get comfortably buzzed and Kara will smile at her indulgently when her hand slips under Kara’s shirt at the small of her back, tracing heated skin there. It’s one of her favorite places on Kara’s body, and when she’s got enough alcohol in her system, it’s all Lena can do to not put her hand there.
Everything goes just exactly as it usually does until suddenly Kara’s entire body goes rigid and her head whips around.
Having no idea what’s made her girlfriend so tense all of a sudden, Lena follows her gaze to see a group of boys at a booth across the bar, laughing and passing around a pitcher of beer. She shoots her girlfriend a puzzled look, but Kara’s just glaring in their direction.
“Kara,” Lena whispers, aware of how the rest of the group have suddenly noticed the change in Kara’s demeanor.
“Assholes,” Kara grumbles loud enough to be caught by Max, who is sitting at their right. He turns to look at the group of guys. It’s rare for Kara to curse - it usually only happens in times of intense or severe emotion - and Lena feels a chill down her spine.
“Do you know them or something, Danvers?” He asks and Kara doesn’t even turn to acknowledge Max.
“They’re talking about you,” is all Kara says, shifting just slightly to indicate she’s referring to Lena.
Max looks puzzled and Lena realizes Kara’s error immediately.
“You heard them talking about me earlier?” Lena asks, more to clarify for Max than anything and to try to get Kara to realize they have an audience.
It doesn’t entirely work, though Max at least looks a little less confused and Aaron has turned back to his conversation with Josie for the moment. Kara, however, is still glaring across the bar and Lena thinks she almost catches the beginnings of a telltale glow in the rim of her eyes.
“Why don’t we go outside? I could use some fresh air after that last whiskey,” she says urgently, sliding off her stool and gripping Kara’s forearm, tugging against it. It feels like trying to pull a marble statue across the room, but it at least gets Kara’s attention. Her girlfriend looks down at where Lena’s hand is on her arm with puzzlement.
“Come outside,” Lena grits out warningly. “With me.”
Kara looks ready to argue, but Lena puts as much plea into her expression as possible. The anger doesn’t fade from Kara’s face, but she nods and lets Lena lead them outside the bar and around the corner to a place of relative privacy.
“I’m going to go over there,” Kara says as soon as they’re alone, pacing in front of Lena. “Let them know how I feel about what they said.”
“You are not,” Lena tells her, crossing her arms and trying to understand where all of Kara’s ire is coming from.
“They can’t talk about you like that. I won’t let them,” Kara argues, and her eyes spike with color.
“Kara, you need to calm down,” Lena says, sensing the almost palpable feeling of Kara’s powers warring inside her.
“I’m calm.”
“You are anything but calm right now.”
“You didn’t hear what they were saying,” Kara retorts, pointing a finger at Lena as if she’s the one to blame.
“I don’t care what they were saying,” Lena replies, and she means it. She’s used to being talked about. There’s not much that hasn’t been said about her, even as a nineteen year-old. Everyone has an opinion and she learned how to tune all that out years ago. “I’m a Luthor, Kara. People talk about me. That’s just a fact of life.”
“Well it shouldn’t be, Lena.”
“And yet it is.”
Kara kicks a nearby dumpster and the sound of it is so loud she’s sure the bar’s bouncer is going to come flying around the corner. The metal container screeches across the pavement underneath it, careening away from them a few feet with a brand new foot-sized dent in the side.
“Kara!” Lena exclaims, rushing towards where her girlfriend is still seething, grabbing ahold of Kara by the arm. Kara sags suddenly against the brick wall of the building, blowing out a breath so violently that it’s almost as if the discarded trash near the dumpster blows away from them.
“I’m sorry,” Kara says, shaking her head and putting a hand to her temple, ripping her glasses off her face and bending over as if in pain. There’s a wince forming on Kara’s face that Lena recognizes and she grabs Kara’s other hand, cups the back of Kara’s neck soothingly.
“Listen,” Lena orders, bending to try and catch Kara’s eye. “Hey, hey,” she says until Kara looks at her. “Listen.”
“It’s too much. I can’t - I can’t,” Kara says, looking tearful, and Lena knows what she means. Lena releases Kara’s hand so that she can hold Kara’s face in both of her own, trying to get Kara to keep eye contact. Distantly, she hears Kara’s glasses fall to the pavement with a soft clink.
“Listen,” Lena repeats, but Kara just shakes her head.
“I can’t,” she murmurs. “Lena, I just want to - it’s too much.”
Emotions often get the better of Kara and her restraint on her powers goes right out the window. It’s a sudden sensory overload where suddenly Kara can hear everything and the noise of the entire world comes crashing into her ears.
“I know,” Lena soothes, and she grabs Kara’s hand again to bring it up to her chest, flattens Kara’s palm on her sternum. “Listen,” she says again. “Can you feel it? Can you hear it?”
Lena breathes deeply, steadies her heartbeat and keeps her eyes locked into Kara’s blue ones.
Fingers spreading, Kara finally nods a little and lets out a meek, “I feel it.”
“Okay, good,” Lena says encouragingly, watching Kara’s eyes flutter closed as she focuses. Their foreheads connect and Lena takes an audible breath, steady and slow. “Just feel that. Let yourself feel it. Listen to it.”
It takes a good minute of just standing there together before Kara relaxes, Lena tapping on the back of Kara’s hand in time with her own heartbeat and repeating the soft command over and over again. Listen to my heart. Feel the beat. Focus on me.
“You’re okay,” Lena whispers, her thumb stroking against Kara’s cheekbone soothingly. When Kara opens her eyes again, Lena’s happy to see that the angry glow has faded and the muscles of Kara’s arms are no longer coiled in tension.
--
Ever since Lena had given Kara her number, the texts had been coming in on a consistent basis. So consistent in fact, that Lena could almost tell time by them. One in the morning, usually something benign - hello, good morning, hope you have a great day, etc. Then one around lunch, usually a picture of whatever Kara is eating or a recommendation for a new restaurant. The quirkier texts start around mid-afternoon and range all the way from random facts about elephants to questions about philosophy.
In a way, Lena’s grateful for Kara’s constant persistence. It’s an easy way to get to know each other again. Low pressure. It feels a little like when they first met - Kara would barrage Lena with a litany of questions in an attempt to learn more about her. They know all the big stuff about each other already, but Lena finds that she’s discovering new things about Kara.
The texting becomes such a staple of her day to day that the minute it stops, Lena notices. As far as Lena is aware, Kara drops off the face of the Earth for two entire days.
At first, she tries to think nothing of it. Kara’s under no obligation to be texting her every single day and maybe Kara just got tired of Lena’s less imaginative responses to texts like did you know walruses bark? Except as soon as Kara seems to disappear, so does Supergirl. From the news, from the skyline of National City, from everywhere. There’s not a single mention of the Girl of Steel for two days even when the warehouse on 8th Street goes up in flames.
When speculation starts to grow that National City’s new vigilante - the Guardian - might be actually be more serial killer than superhero, the worry in Lena’s gut grows tenfold. There’s no way Kara’s absent while this goes on unless something is seriously wrong.
She thinks to text Alex and ask. It would require a certain amount of detective skills (or hacking skills) to acquire the older Danvers’s number, but the situation seems to warrant such a thing. Just as she’s about to do just that, a heavier-than-normal thud resounds through Lena’s apartment from the direction of her balcony and she turns to see Supergirl standing there, hunching a little with a desperate look to her face.
“Supergirl,” Lena breathes as she moves out to the balcony, just barely restraining herself from yelling Kara’s name. “Are you okay? Where have you been?”
Kara’s lips twitch a little at that, but it’s not from amusement. Something twists inside Lena’s gut and her skin tingles in silent foreshadowing. Whatever Kara’s here for, it’s not good.
“I need to talk to you,” Kara says simply, walking inside the apartment. There’s a heavy look to her step that unsettles Lena.
She runs a hand through her loose hair and follows her inside. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah,” Kara sighs, but it sounds off. Lena responds to it instinctively, paces over to where Kara is and puts her hands on her cheeks, pulling Kara’s face until they make eye contact.
“What happened?” Lena asks, eyes darting over Kara critically, looking for some physical sign of injury. But it’s only the shuttered, haunted look around Kara’s eyes that’s worrying her. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Kara leans into the contact for a brief moment, her eyes fluttering before she pulls away, backs up and sits down on the arm of Lena’s couch, fingers twisting together as she studies them. “I’m fine, for real. I just need to talk to you.”
The sudden absence of Kara’s skin under hands shudders something cold down Lena’s spine and she swallows against the feeling, throat thick. “Okay, sure,” she replies, trying to get the shaky feeling to subside. Her hands ache to touch Kara again, to seek out a tangible reassurance that Kara is okay. “About what?”
When Kara turns to look at her, a pained expression is all over her face that likes of which Lena’s not sure she’s ever seen before. “Your mother,” Kara answers and Lena takes a step back reflexively at the dark tone in Kara’s voice.
“Kara,” Lena says carefully, unsure of where this could possibly be going. Why Supergirl would rush over here looking unsettled and asking questions after her mother. “What does my mother have to do with anything?”
From the looks of Kara’s expression, she wants to be doing anything but answering that question, and Lena crosses her arms defensively. Kara’s eyes track the motion and she sags, perching against the arm of the couch. It’s a position Lena seems to always find Kara in when they’re about to have emotionally exhausting conversations. “Why don’t we have a drink?” Kara suggests. “And I’ll tell you about it.”
“You don’t drink,” Lena answers, trying not to snap. “Answer my question.”
Kara looks at her dead on, jaw tight. “Let’s have a drink,” she repeats. “And I will.”
“Stop being obtuse,” Lena snaps, unable to stop herself this time. Worry and irritation mixing and bubbling up into her throat. “You know how much I hate that.”
“I’m not trying to be,” Kara says softly, cutting through Lena’s anger. “I’m just,” she sighs heavily, “It’s not a simple answer.”
They stay locked in a silent staring contest for a few moments and Lena catalogs the tired look in Kara’s eyes, the concern etched into her strong jawline, and the resigned curl of her spine. It’s the quiet, “Please,” that Kara lets out after a bit that finally defeats Lena and she throws her hands up before walking further into the apartment towards the kitchen. “Fine,” she sighs. “I’ll make hot chocolate.”
Kara actually laughs a little at that, the sound of it at such a contrast with the tense feeling that’s stretched between them. Lena lets herself smile, for just one moment.