Chapter Text
Lena has been drawing the shapes for as long as she can remember; lines, then circles, then dots to finish. It’s so simple that she can (and has, don’t tell her mother) drawn it in her sleep. It’s somewhere in all of her schoolbooks, sketched onto the heel of her runners. The shapes are as instinctive as writing her own name.
Unlike her name, they have never changed.
It is her thirteenth birthday and she is idly sketching the shapes out on scratch paper as she tries her best intimidating glare on her math textbook. As an inanimate object it is guaranteed to win this staredown, but it is a better channel for her resentment than her other options. Her adoptive mother Lillian is downstairs, pecking away at journal article on the computer. Her adoptive father, Lionel, is in his office down the hall, moving money in a trumped up game of three card monte. Her brother Lex is off somewhere else, school or work or travel, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that he is not here and she is doing trigonometry on her birthday. Not that she dislikes trigonometry, but Danica Preston’s birthday was last week and she and her friends went bowling and had cake.
So Lena heard.
The words on the page of the math book swim. She reaches out and snaps it shut, pushing her forehead down on the cardboard of the cover. Her face is suddenly heated with embarrassment at the reminder of how different she is from her classmates and all of the ways they never let her forget it. She is pale, she is scrawny, she is adopted, she is smart. She is bad at sports, good at math, bad at art, good at being the teachers pet (but if the teacher didn’t like her, no one would, so she clings to that no matter how much grief she gets about it.).
Most crucial to her peers, her left arm is clear and unmarked. She envies this more than anything else, that every last one of them is Connected. She is the only one who never glances down at her arm to giggle at a secret message or hurriedly write out a question. Lena speaks and understands only one language-Danica reads three, because her Connect is Swiss. As tears patter on her textbook, Lena darkly hopes that Danica’s Connect is smelly and hideous. She knows he must be boring and stupid, because otherwise he would not have matched with Danica. It is a cold comfort.
The skin of her left arm crawls as she sits up. She doesn’t look-it’s probably just her hair dragging along her wrist again. People like her aren’t so rare, anyway. It’s theorized their Connect died young, but no one’s worked out how to prove that theory. Instead, she glances at the scrap paper.
Help me.
Lena stares. The shapes are still there, but now they are also words. She closes her eyes, counts to ten, then opens them again.
Help me.
Eyes shut once more, she flips her left arm over on the desk, exposing her forearm. Taking a deep breath, she centres herself, then opens her eyes.
Hello?
New shapes, but somehow familiar. She copies them automatically onto her paper, then raises her pen over her arm. There is etiquette to be considered. First you introduce yourself.
Hello? I’m Lena.
The odd shapes overtake her writing almost immediately.
Where are you? Who are you? Where am I?
Etiquette has never covered this. She’s not quite certain how to respond. It’s considered rude to ask too many questions, but the strange writing scrambles along her skin nevertheless.
I'm Lena Luthor. I’m Your Connect.. She tries to head off further questions before they come-there’s a sense of panic in the way her Connect is writing.
What planet is this?. Things fall into place a bit. She’s read very little about Connects from other worlds. Some aliens have made contact with humans through whatever mechanism makes Connecting possible in the first place. Science has been unable to explain it thus far. She never thought she’d be one of those linked to another species.
Her pen hesitates over her arm for a moment. Earth.
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All things considered, she’s impressed that she managed to keep her Connect a secret as long as she has. She’s fourteen and a half when she steps out of the shower and almost directly onto Lillian’s feet. Her mother doesn’t say anything, but catches her left arm and watches the alien script scrawl from elbow to wrist.
Lena does not know what to do, so she tries to hide her whole body under a bath towel. Lilian fixes her with a glare once she’s wrapped herself. “Get dressed and come to your fathers office.”
Most parents are happy to learn that their child has Connected. She reminds herself repeatedly of that while she picks out a sleeveless shirt and a skirt. It means they’re normal, just like everyone else. Of course, Connecting to an alien is the opposite of normal, even if Kara is bubbly and sweet and trying so hard not to be strange. She takes out a pen after straightening her top and quickly writes My parents are reading, on her wrist.
A stickman manifests at her elbow, it’s wide mouth stitched shut. Lena laughs, then tugs her hair into a ponytail and pads off down the hall to the study. Lillian and Lionel are there, seated in the green leather chairs by the fireplace. Lena positions herself on the couch, elbows in, knees bent. If it were anyone but her parents, she wouldn’t be so withdrawn but they are the last people she wanted to know about Kara.
Lionel speaks first, leaning forward in his seat. “Show me?” Her throat closes with sudden emotion at the kindness in his tone and she offers him her arm immediately. It is embarrassing how the slightest niceties work on her.
Kara has replaced the drawing with a painstakingly written “Hello Mrs and Mr Luthor” in English. Lionel chuckles when he sees it.
“Very polite,” he says, turning Lena’s arm back and forth. “What do you know about them?”
“Have it write it in its own language,” Lillian says, her tone much chillier than Lionel's. Lena feels a burn in her cheeks, but uses her finger to write the characters for ‘Kryptonian’ on her wrist.
There is a delay this time. Lena does not blame Kara for being hesitant. Connect aside, only her adoptive family knows what she is. Lena’s heart pangs when the writing begins along her forearm, English giving way to careful Kryptonian calligraphy. It is the same words again, but with each stroke Lena can see Lionel’s face fall. His vanishing goodwill feels like a physical ache.
“So he’s an alien,” he says once Kara is done writing. He stares at Lena’s arm contemplatively.
“She,” she mumbles, looking away when he peers at her.
“She,” he repeats.
“At least there’s no chance of offspring,” Lillian mutters, turning to gaze into the fireplace.
Lena stares at her wrist, wishing she could retreat entirely, possibly under her bed, for the rest of her life. Connects were often eventually romantic, a thought that had barely crossed her mind until Lillian laid it out so crudely. A person who’d known you your entire life had a distinct advantage over other potential partners.
“No need for that,” Lionel says, releasing Lena’s arm. “They haven’t even met.” She breathed, looking down at Kara’s writing. It hadn’t changed. “Besides, we already expected this!”
A humming began in Lena’s ears, the sound of her blood rushing through her head. This had the sound of a longer conversation she was only just being included in. Lillian turned back from the fireplace, arching an eyebrow at him. “Well, not for certain. She only ever wrote the one thing before.”
Help me. Kara’s plea as she was hurled into the stars, a last effort to find someone waiting for her at the other side of the apocalypse that had destroyed her home. One orphan reaching out to another. The remnants of Kara’s family had been looking for her, had found her a mother and a father and a sister to love her. Lena had been left a ward of the state, no one interested in the brooding little girl who drew strange pictures all day. Not until Lionel had come and asked after her specifically. Lena bows her head. “Is that why-” she begins, blinking rapidly.
“Of course. You know we’ve always had an interest in aliens,” Lionel says, making it sound like an academic curiousity instead of the venomous truth. “Now we can communicate with them!”
Lena wraps her arm around her body. She is the only one who could write to Kara, but that is little comfort. Lionel looks at her with a jolly smile, as though he hadn’t just told her that she’d only been adopted because of her bizarre Connect. Lillian’s unreadable expression is condescending in a way only she could be. She has a mother, a father, a brother, but she is not certain at all of their love.
“I can only read Kryptonian,” Lena protests.
“And write it,” Lillian says. “And speak it, if you have a tutor.”
Lena stares at them, then down at her arm. The formal Kryptonian writing has gone. Kara has scribbled ‘is it okay?’ In it's place. Lena pulls her arm against her stomach again and hunches in on herself. “I don’t want to,” she says.
Lillian frowns. “You will.”
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She is seventeen, sitting in the massive family garage, staring at her car. Her brother is under the hood, chatting excitedly at her about Luthercorp as he clanks around with this and that tool. It is summer break, which means her parents had to bring her home from boarding school. Lex is trying to unhook the tracking and control device Lillian had put on the engine, but since it’s been more than ten minutes, Lena doubts he will succeed.
“Why can’t you just wait a year?” He asks from the depths of the engine. Writing scribbles along her wrist. She glances down at the Kryptonian.
Does cardamom taste like cinnamon?
Almost everyone who can afford it takes a trip to meet their Connect once they turn eighteen. Her Facebook and Instagram feeds feature a steady trickle of reunion pictures as the people she knows from school and summer camp find their other person. They talk about the things they knew and the things they didn’t, the joys of finally meeting one another face to face. She’s been blocking them one by one. If her parents get so much as a hint that she’s considering going east to find Kara, they’ll get her internship pulled and pack her off to some technology camp for introvert thirteen year olds. Her plan is to go at the end of the summer, before she’s sent back to the campus in Ireland.
Not as spicy. Try it in warm milk. Don’t eat the seeds.
“Because,” she finally answers Lex. It’s flippant enough that he emerges from under the hood to smirk at her, a look she returns in kind. Her mask is perfect. His crumbles immediately.
“Can you write something for me before I go back to Metropolis?” She can’t miss the manic look about him as he ducks back into the car. “For Superman?”
He always asks her for this, so casually, as though the copy he’ll hand her later isn’t subtly frightening. She’s been subverting him all this time, though she knows one day he’ll run across a xenolinguist who will tell him that all of his threats and posturing have been rewritten to pleas for leniency and requests that Superman try to end Lex’s schemes without harming him. He might be a maniac, but he is still her brother. Hopefully he’ll remember that when he finds out what she’s done.
“Of course,” she answers.
So much spice! They’re stuck to my teeth!
Lena closes her eyes and exhales through her nose. Told you, she writes back. No matter how Lionel and Lillian go on about aliens and the threat they pose to humanity, Lena will always have proof that at least one is a larger threat to a tray of cookies than any human being.
“Do you think it knows Superman?” Lex asks, suddenly practically on top of her. She flinches, pulling her sleeve over the writing on her arm. Every time her family acknowledges Kara it’s snide, probing, always pushing Lena to refer to the alien ‘correctly’ as a thing, not a person. As though the Kryptonian writing on her arm isn’t math formulas and musical notes and ‘I saw a puppy today’. She can’t help but compare it to Lex’s Connect. When Lex found Rajiv, Lionel paid for a plane ticket, an apartment, documentation. Rajiv’s in the labs at Luther Corp now, happier than he was at tech college in Bangaluru, and Lena sometimes wonders if he’s as crazy as Lex.
Of course Kara has told Lena about her famous cousin, everything but his human name. She suspects she knows more about Superman than he does, considering Kara apparently used to change his diapers. “She hasn’t said,” Lena lies. It’s the greatest test of her ability-Lionel is hardly a challenge and Lillian will decide she’s lying arbitrarily, but Lex’s keen stare always seems to pick her apart. She meets his eyes with confidence. He is the one who turns first.
“I think I got all of it.” He gestures towards the car. “But you might want to take a few test drives, in case.”
She nods, feeling the writing scratch again. Only a month to go.
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As twenty first birthdays go, it’s a bit of a rager. Engineers, they say, are like that. Lena can’t even tuck herself off in a corner-as the guest of honour she’s front and centre at the head of the table. She’s probably eight beers under (it’s hard to keep track when your glass is never actually empty), someone brought a robot, and she has a sneaking suspicion that Ryan the biotech major may have hired a clown or a stripper.
Or god forbid, a clown stripper.
At least the classmates who have abducted her to this surprise house party are her friends (though she may be reconsidering Ryan at the moment). They might not be bosom buddies, but they have in-jokes and friendly banter with her. There is mild interdisciplinary rivalry between the mechanical and the civil majors. She feels comfortable among them, even as a ninth beer arrives in her hand. The crowd cheers when she immediately chugs it and that is the tone for the evening.
The clown stripper shows up around beer twelve and for the first time in three years Lena actually wishes she had a car, if only to hide from the very deliberately placed red nose that keeps swinging in her direction. But Lillian destroyed her car (and the two after it) and she knows if she gets another, it will somehow end up exactly the same, no matter how many states are between them. Her parents were very clear about that. So she deflects the red nose with someone else's physics textbook and begins devising her eventual revenge on Ryan.
By drink twenty-ish (beer became liquor around fourteen) she’s showing off her impeccable Kryptonian script, claiming it’s practise for the xenolinguistics class she is acing. She takes requests in exchange for shots. She writes lewd phrases and argues syntax with someone’s girlfriend until someone else racks up the tequila and she licks-shoots-sucks, spits out the lime and kisses the girl she was just lecturing about verb tenses. Her kissee giggles and Lena grins, looping her fingertip idly along her left arm.
Drink probably-twenty-one-but-who-knows is a muff dive, and she loudly tells the wielder of the whipping cream that if she sprays any in her hair there will be hell to pay. She’s not sure whose lap they put the shot into, just shoves her face into the fluffy sweet whipped cream and pulls out the shot glass in a move that is far too smooth for how dizzy she is. This shot burns in her chest in spite of the cream. She wipes her face with a clumsy hand, spits out the empty shot glass and upends it on the nearest flat surface. She thinks there is cheering, but her hearing goes fuzzy. Her whole face tingles, sweat breaks out over her brow and she barely bolts for the bathroom in time.
It’s two forty in the morning when she is finally able to lift her head enough to check the time on her cell phone. Her stomach is still roiling and she wants to go home, but home is...a great distance away and everyone here is drunk. She leans back against the wall, readying herself to call a taxi when someone knocks on the bathroom door.
“Lena?” Ryan drawls. She pushes herself to her feet and turns on the tap, splashing a double palmful of water over her face and neck.
“‘M okay,” she calls to him, patting herself dry with the towel on the back of the door. “Right out.”
“Alright. Cause your rides here.”
She pauses with the towel over her eyes, swaying back against the wall again. Her cheeks are almost purple with embarrassment. She’s gotten so drunk at her own birthday party that her friends are itching to get rid of her. They’ve already called her a taxi, and there’s probably someone waiting in the living room with an apologetic look and her coat.
There is a burst of laughter when she emerges, but none of it seems directed at her. The party has already moved on without its guest of honour. She checks what’s left of her makeup in a hall mirror, then tries her best to stay standing straight as she rounds the corner into the living room.
No one has her coat. No one is even looking at her. Instead, most of the guests are focused on a new arrival, a cherry-cheeked woman who looks like she might be a tall fourteen year old. Her hair is the colour of fresh honey and it falls down her back in waves. Lena blinks-it’s all she can do for a minute or so-until someone calls ‘there she is!’ And the woman turns around.
Lena feels her shoulder hit the doorframe before she realizes she’s tipped to the side. The motion catches up with her and her vision blurs briefly, then she focuses again. That pretty face and those rosy cheeks are closing in on her fast. Before she can protest, she’s wrapped in a warm hug, and a voice like bells is murmuring ‘hey’ in her ear.
Someone touches her arm and Lena looks away from the mystery girl. Her lab partner, the host of this little shindig, looks absolutely chastened as she squeezes Lena’s bicep. “You know your Connect is always invited, right? We would have sent her an message if we knew she was here,” Jasika says, watching Lena for a hint of a reaction.
Her Connect. Lena turns away from Jasika, back to Kara’s bright blush. Kara the alien. Who is here. Now.
“I was out of town,” she says, her arms still around Lena, who realizes that she is literally being held on her feet. “Just got back.”
“How come we’ve never met you before?” Jasika asks Kara the question but stares at Lena as she does.
“She goes to school out of state,” Lena answers quickly. In combination they are terrible liars. “We should go.”
“Yeah.” Kara studies her face, and that rise-and-fall blush picks up again. Lena puts an arm around her shoulders and lets Kara take her weight. Jasika produces her coat and another apology that Lena barely hears because Kara has taken over preparing her for the outdoors, guiding her arms into the coat and zipping up the front. Lena’s wave to her friends is very vague, and the moment they have left the party she leans entirely on Kara again.
“Why?” She asks at the bottom of the apartment stairwell. Kara leans her against the wall so she can fix her own jacket.
“You wrote ‘help me,” she replies, touching her forearm. “So...I looked you up on Facebook, found out where you were and…” Kara shrugs. “Here I am.”
“Here you are.” There are so many things Lena wants to do, say, hear from Kara. Things she’s been holding back since her mother ruined her vehicle and thus her attempt to meet her Connect three years ago. All those cancelled plane tickets, being pulled off of trains, and that one time she almost made it on the bus until she reached some tiny town in the middle of the night and found Lex waiting outside of the terminal. Her head spins with the memories, until she realizes that the spinning is probably a remnant of the tequila a few seconds before she vomits on the floor in front of Kara. And it had been such a touching moment up until then.
Kara snorts, then checks her pockets and uses a found tissue to dab Lena’s face clean. “Where’s your house?” She asks, guiding Lena around the puddle.
“I...that way?” Lena guesses.
“Okay,” Kara replies.
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As Lillian sobs in her ear, Lena stares at her off-grey wall and thinks about Rajiv. He’s been in the long term psychiatric ward of the Highmarsh Facility for just short of five months now. Someone will have to pay his bills. She doubts Lex thought that far ahead as he barrelled from ‘quirky’ to ‘mass murdering lunatic’. Picking up a pen, she writes herself a quick note.
“Lena.” Lillian’s voice is sharp. She must have ignored something important.
“I’m sorry mother. I wasn’t listening.” The need to provoke her parents...well, parent now...has always been too tempting for her. What had Lionel thought, seeing Superman rushing to his aid after everything he’d said, after everything Lex did?
“Don’t tell me you’re talking to that thing at a time like this.”
Lena’s lips pull back from her teeth. It is not a smile. “I was thinking about Rajiv.”
“Who cares about Rajiv!? Your brother needs US now, not his Connect! His FAMILY.”
Lena’s eyebrow arches and she swallows a multitude of potential responses. Her arm itches with writing, but she leaves her sleeve down for the moment. “Someone has to take care of him,” she points out.
“And we will. We are meeting with the lawyers in the morning and until then I expect you to remain out of sight. You’ll likely have to stand in until we can recruit a new CEO for Luther Corp. i’ll call the transition team after the lawyers.”
She almost protests, points out that she was still talking about Rajiv, then closes her eyes. “Of course, mother.” It doesn’t quite sink in right away that her mother has told her that she will be the CEO of Luther Corp. She’s too busy remembering process for setting up a trust until it hits her and her eyes snap open. “CEO?”
“Interim CEO.”
Lena turns and walks a few paces, already turning over the next steps in her head. “When should I meet you in the morning?”
“Nine-thirty. Your father would have wanted this to be...efficient.” There is almost a discernible emotion in Lillian’s voice.
“I will be there,” Lena replies, just as Lillian hangs up the phone. She sets her own aside, then unbuttons her sleeve and rolls it up to her elbow.
Are you okay? Can I come over? I’ll bring-. Whatever Kara wrote next is unintelligible-it looks like she scratched it out a few times, which means she probably couldn’t decide what exact foodstuffs she wanted to offer.
Is your cousin alright? Lena writes back, taking a seat on her couch. She had seen the news coverage. Superman had taken a vicious beating from her brother.
Yes. He went away to think.
Lena rests her fingertips on her wrist, considering what she should say next. If he needs you to take care of him, you should go.. It’s what she wants to do for Lex, even now. if only he’d given her some indication of how far he’d spun. She should have realized when Rajiv had his breakdown that Lex was soon to follow.
He has his phone. He knows he can call me whenever. I can’t imagine how you’re feeling.
Lena bows her head, tucking her knees to her chest. Bad.. She considers her arm for a moment. You don’t have to come. Every news organization and law enforcement agency has probably got surveillance on my building. It would be dangerous for you.
There is a pause and Lena thinks she may have actually talked Kara out of something for the first time in two years. The feeling does not last much longer. I’ll get pizza!
Kara arrives in a car an hour later, like a human, with two pizzas and a giant takeout container full of potstickers. She rides the elevator to Lena’s penthouse, smiling hopefully when she steps out of the compartment. “Got your favourite,” she says, setting the pizza boxes aside in favour of hugging Lena.
“Thanks,” Lena says, digging her fingers into Kara’s back and shoving her suddenly damp eyes into her Connect’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
Kara drops the potstickers beside them, wrapping her arms even tighter around her friend. “Of course,” she answers, resting her chin against Lena’s temple. Lena shudders hard, then clings to Kara, her tears spilling over silently. She wishes she could wail and carry on as Lillian did on television, but part of her is too angry to let her grief be so self indulgent.
Their feet shuffle and Kara nudges her a little, until they sink to the couch and settle around one another. Kara’s fingers play through her hair as Lena curls in against her, still shaking with sorrow. Even with her eyes closed she can’t miss Kara’s laser vision going off five times. The smell of burning electronics drifts through the apartment. “Subtle,” she murmurs and Kara giggles a little. “My mother is not going to be happy about that.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, that was a weird power surge.”
Lena sniffles and bunts her head into Kara’s shoulder. “I would have warned you if I knew what he was going to do. So you could tell Kal. I promise, I would never just let my family hurt yours.”
Kara’s hand moves to her neck, tracing little circles along her pulse. “I know you would have. So does Kal,” she says. “And Alex. And my mom. And Kal’s Connect.” She feels Lena slide her arms around her waist. “And like, so many other people back home. Not as many here, I promise. Just some of my coworkers. I stopped wearing short sleeves after that one time, cross my heart. Your reputation in National City is safe from small town gossip.”
Lena’s most of the way into her lap now, pressed as close as she can get. She should be sending messages and making her own preparations for tomorrow, but Kara is warmer and softer and steadier than the rest of the world. For the first time, in spite of everything that’s happened in the last twenty four hours, Lena doesn’t feel like she’s walking on emotional razors. Does everyone else feel like this with their Connect? “Are you sure Kal doesn’t need you?” She has to ask again, because with her family in tatters, clinging to Kara’s only makes sense, and Kara is too nice to leave someone in need.
Kara’s lips press to the top of her head and Lena feels her limbs go slack with happiness. “Kal’s got his Connect. I want to take care of mine.”
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The hallways flicker with red lights. Lena keeps her left arm bared as she strides ahead of her board of directors and the small assortment of administrative staff who were attending the late meeting. There is a fire extinguisher tucked under her arm. She has very little time to get them out and she must think quickly to evade the cadre of armed men who have stormed the building. Her not-so-secret weapon is fretting half a mile away, prevented from engaging due to the green mineral most of the squad is toting on their persons.
Left.. Lena immediately signals the group to follow her around the next left turn, staying ahead of them by several steps. She’s certain the invaders must be close now, just as she’s certain the NCPD is setting up down below.
The hallway ends at a stairwell. Lena gestures the executives back, then slowly opens the door. She feels writing prickle along her arm, glancing down at it only once she’s sure it’s safe. Four, two floors down.
Her heart leaps into her throat. She has never wanted to be a hero like the Danvers sisters. A fight seems impossible, especially a fight with four armed men. Theoretically she’s studied self defence, but practically speaking she’s never used it. Talking got her out of most scrapes and the rest proved the benefits of being Connected to Supergirl. She takes the fire extinguisher from under her arm and passes it to Fred, her head of logistics. The group follows her forward again, understanding the need for quiet without any explanation.
Fred falls in close behind her, descending the stairs as quietly as he can. She hears a shoe scrape on a landing below and motions for those behind her to stop. “Hello?” She calls, starting forward again with Fred at her heels. “Is someone there? All the lights went out?”
Guns.
She doesn’t really need Kara’s help to remember that. Below there is a general rustling of equipment and feet, then a voice answers her. “NCPD. Can you identify yourself please miss? There are hostile personnel in the building.”
Lena can’t help arching her eyebrow in disbelief. Of all of the weak lies they could have used. “Oh my,” she says breathily, stopping before she and Fred turn the next corner. “I’m Lena Luthor,” she continues, listening hard.
Careful.
“Miss Luthor, if you will proceed in the direction of my voice we’ll get you out of here.” They haven't gone still. They’re not expecting an attack.
“Is my liaison in the building or outside?” She continues walking towards the voice, close enough to hear their breathing now. Her heart pounds so hard she can barely think but there are thirty people above her counting on her to get them through this. She must keep her head.
“Come down where we can see you and we’ll take you to him.” If there were any doubts that these are not police, that settles them. Her liaison is detective Sawyer, and at this point she’s had enough dealings with the NCPD that any officer on site at LCorp would know that.
Lena doesn’t answer him. She pauses on the landing, just out of his view, and raises her left wrist to her lips. Hopefully Kara will understand why she’s taking this risk. Hopefully she’ll understand the meaning behind this kiss. Lena holds her wrist to her mouth long enough to make an unmistakeable mark, then takes the extinguisher back from Fred and faces the stairwell. “I’m coming,” she calls ahead of herself.
Her whole arm itches as she pulls the pin on the extinguisher, but she’s already in motion.
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After Lena’s kiss (and the one after that, and the one after that) things are different.
There is hair tingling against her elbow as she walks into her office and sets a coffee on Jess’s desk.
There are eyelashes brushing her wrist during a board meeting.
There is a kiss, perfect and pink, on her forearm as she pages through lab notes with a duo of interns.
There is a meandering Kryptonian love poem that stops and starts during a conference call. Lena has to drape papers over her arm to conceal all of it.
At the lab coffee machine, Lena uses a stir stick to mark the notes of a song on the inside of her arm.
In the elevator, Lena clasps her hand around her left arm, squeezing firmly until she feels the same pressure returned.
As the clock ticks away her lunch break, Lena rubs her cheek on her forearm like a cat, then leaves a ruby kiss on her wrist.
A formula she writes on her arm at midnight after working all day has a solution surrounded by a heart at seven in the morning.
Help me means ‘walk to work with me’, ‘carry these groceries’, ‘we’re out of donuts’, ‘the bed is cold without you’, ‘work will be there in the morning, dinner is here now’, ‘I need a flight home’.
“I love you,” covers almost everything else.