505. Chapter 505

She’s been over for dinner so many times it should come naturally to her by now.

But she’s intimidated by the woman who’s life she saved – the woman who saved her life – the woman her girlfriend looks up to more than anyone in the galaxy.

So Lena still trembles a little bit when she knocks on Alex’s door for their weekly double-dinner date.

Alex tugs the door open, gesturing Lena inside with an irritated look on her face and her phone stuck between her cheek and her shoulder.

Maggie nods at Lena from the kitchen and offers her a small smile, but her face is so grim it comes off more like a grimace.

“It’s not you,” she whispers as Lena crosses into the kitchen, looking worriedly at Alex, wishing Kara was home, too.

“Yes, I’m letting it heal properly, Mom. They got me out before any permanent damage to my – no! No, I don’t need to come home to Midvale, I’m a grown woman, I – it’s my job, Mom, I was protecting Kara, I was – “

“Eliza?” Lena asks Maggie softly as she automatically starts helping her with plates, with napkins, with silverware.

Maggie nods grimly, one eye on her stirfry and the other on her girlfriend.

Her phone chimes and she jumps, and she swears.

“Shit, Lena, it’s work, I – it shouldn’t take long, but do you mind watching the dinner – and, uh, Alex – until I get back?”

“Not at all, go. It’s work, Alex and Kara will understand.”

Maggie grimaces gratefully and gestures an explanation to Alex, who nods distractedly, still walking the line between fighting with her mother and accepting that she’s something that resembles worried about her.

Lena watches Alex pace the apartment quietly while she finishes Maggie’s cooking, poking at red peppers here and there to test their texture, their taste.

She feels oddly gratified – and immensely moved – that Alex doesn’t feel the need to take the conversation into another room. A more private room.

A room away from Lena.

She hangs up with begrudging but real words of love, and she heaves a long, unsteady sigh before turning to Lena.

“Sorry about that, I just – “

“Your mother?” Lena asks softly, because they’ve had this conversation before.

Because their relationship began over Kara, and evolved over science, over heroism.

And deepened over their mothers.

Lena pours Alex a large glass of wine, shrugs slightly, and takes one for herself. She turns off the burners – Maggie’s better at this sort of thing, anyway – and follows Alex to the couch.

“She gets it, now. A little. I think it really got to her that I was scared to come out to her. I think that really hit her, like if I didn’t know she’d still love me, she must’ve done something wrong, you know?”

Lena nods, silent. Watching. Understanding.

“So it’s gotten a bit better. But then my dad, and then that…” She shudders, and Lena knows what’s coming, and she represses her own shudder. “Then that tank. But at least she cares, right?” Alex shakes her head and heaves a sigh. “Mothers, huh?”

Lena smiles softly and clinks her glass to Alex’s.

“You know when I was away at boarding school, she never wrote to me. Not once, not to see how I was, not… she would come, of course, on parents’ weekends, but more to check up on me, to show off how clever her daughter is. All about appearances.”

Lena nearly sneers before raising her eyebrows, sipping her wine, and wishing, for a moment, for something harder. “She’s always wanted me to be Lex. Even though I can’t possibly be him. Just like you can’t possibly be Kara. But I wouldn’t want you to be. The world needs Alex Danvers.”

Alex scoffs slightly.

“Yeah, because Kara Danvers needs me.”

“She does, yes. But so do your friends.” Lena waits for Alex to meet her eyes, burning and intense and sincere. “You’re important, Alex. And your father, that tank… none of that was your fault.”

Alex sighs and grins slightly. “You know you’re pretty sweet. For a Luthor,” she teases, nudging her slightly with her shoulder, and Lena laughs, her heart light at the idea of Alex utterly not meaning her joke.

Neither of them notice when Kara and Maggie slip back into the apartment, too busy swapping stories of thirteen-year-old crushes and first times and mothers’ disapproval.

“I think your girlfriend and my girlfriend are friends,” Kara muses, beaming, and Maggie watches Alex laugh with tears in her eyes.

“It might be a dangerous combination. Not sure the world’s ready for it.”

Kara’s smile broadens at Maggie’s words. “Yeah. We should definitely come with a warning.”