Work Text:
“And then, just when I was about to—”
Kara’s phone rings. Lena pauses midway her story about her making a grown-man cry during his presentation to her earlier that day, a laugh still on her lips, to look down at the phone. The blonde frowns and checks the message quickly.
“S-sorry, Lena, I have to—” Kara stands and waves her phone around as if it explains her rush. Lena bites back the amused smile that threatened to overtake her features as she watches Kara stumble for an excuse. “Emergency.” The crinkle makes itself known between the blonde’s eyebrows but Lena only nods in understanding. “There’s a story. At the, um, pier. James wants me to go.”
“I understand,” the CEO says coolly as she gestures towards the balcony door where they had been catching up with brunch. “Stay safe, please, Kara.”
The reporter nods and almost falls on her ass on her haste to go. Lena chuckles softly and shakes her head when she leaves. She stabs the lettuce leaf on her salad and eats it as she watches the city below.
Kara, for once, had a believable lie this time. Almost. Lena wonders what the actual emergency is, but she knows it’s not a story at the pier. She’s actually forgotten when she had stopped believing in Kara’s excuses—she trusts her best friend completely, of course, but her list of usable excuses and emergencies have run out and Lena isn’t that stupid. A little foolish perhaps, for having a crush on her best friend—her only friend, really—but not stupid enough to not realize that Kara Danvers is Supergirl. Besides, she could recognize those eyes from anywhere. Not even the glasses could protect Kara from that—not that Lena thinks the ponytail does the same. If she was being frank, she thinks Kara’s disguise is absolute crap. She should definitely volunteer one of these days, when everything is finally out in the open, to give her costume an overhaul—she needed to be dressed for comfort, after all, and despite being practically invincible her clothing should be protective, especially from threats like Kryptonite. Some pants would definitely help, for practical purposes of course, not so Lena could stare at her ass when Supergirl pays her the occasional visit.
Lena wonders who designed her current costume. Probably some boy who had a crush on Kara and wanted to see her saving the world in nothing but a glorified cheerleader outfit.
Her terrible disguise and costume aside, it’s a wonder employees at CatCo haven’t come to the same conclusion as she. Kara would always conveniently vanish with some excuse and Supergirl would suddenly make an appearance somewhere else, then Kara would return either in a new set of clothes—with an excuse of I spilled some (insert name of drink here) —or with windswept hair or a rather intense perfume that barely masks the smell of smoke or gunfire. Lena has her figured it out finally, despite her previous reasoning that correlation isn’t causation and Kara is a reporter who is doing her job—and perhaps, the last hope she held onto: that Kara wouldn’t lie to her like that.
But Kara has been lying to her, for a few months now, and though it had stung a bit the first few consecutive brunches after finding out, Lena had been fine with it. She is a Luthor after all and her family and the Supers don’t have the best of histories. Maybe it’s under the pretense of keeping her safe, not that she isn’t in constant danger because of the last name she carries. She understands the necessity of keeping Kara’s identity a secret, though she does wish that sometimes Kara would try harder because when she gives her an excuse about Alex needing help to carry some groceries or Winn needing her assistance about some “geek stuff”—cue awkward laughter—Lena almost wants to take offense.
She does want Kara to come clean, though, if only to save Kara from the hassle of having to think about some ridiculous excuse just to leave. However, Lena had to admit that watching the blonde stammer for some alibi or another is always so amusing, especially when the CEO would question her. Very innocently.
Lena finishes her salad and picks up the container along with Kara’s long-finished tupperware of potato salad and chicken wings. She heads to the pantry to wash it, despite Eve’s insistence that she could do it, but Lena didn’t want to bother the woman knowing she’s busy. She’s drying her hands with the rack towel when James walks in to put what she guesses were leftovers in the fridge.
“James,” Lena greets the man, little surprise coloring her tone. James smiles and greets her back before taking some yoghurt from the fridge. She wants to ask if he sent Kara to the pier but she thinks she knows the answer so instead, she takes the lid of Kara’s lunch box and closes it. “Tell editorial I want to see tomorrow’s cover by five, please.”
James nods and brings his yoghurt to his office. Lena takes Kara’s washed lunchbox and places it on the reporter’s desk, then steals a post-it to write Hope the pier story went fine. L before she heads to her own desk. They’ve managed to give her one, at one corner of the office floor, despite her insistence that she would be roaming around the office—that had become tiring after the first day, especially on her heels. She has a large white desk that’s similar to the one she had at L-Corp, plus two file cabinets and a whole lot of folders and notepads. There’s a stack of copies of drafts she had gone through in the past few weeks she had been there. Eve had given her three pens of black, red, and blue colors, and she uses them to write on the planner Kara had given her on her first day. Though her space isn’t as fancy as L-Corp’s, it was a nice change to be surrounded by the hustle and bustle of a media company that doesn’t seem to rest. She busies herself with work—walking around and checking on people, asking what they’re working on, and offering her help and advise where possible. She’d like to think that she fully understands by now the ins and outs of running CatCo but she also knows that everyday is a learning opportunity.
She just finished talking to one of the interns about what he thinks would help CatCo do better on digital when she notices Kara come in. Upon checking her phone, she realizes the blonde had been gone for almost three hours. Lena walks up to her and the first thing she notices is the smudge of something like charcoal on her left jaw. The CEO points at it.
“What happened at the pier?” She asks.
“Pier?” Kara echoes as she adjusts her glasses. Lena almost laughs but she just stares expectantly until the blonde seemed to pick up on what she meant. “Oh. Oh! The pier. It was, uh, fine, I got everything I needed, and uh—” Kara nods and pats her bag. “Everything here.”
Lena just nods. “You have something on your…” The raven-haired woman reaches up to wipe the dirt off of Kara’s jaw. The blonde blushes a hot pink and she squirms under Lena’s touch. The businesswoman chuckles, her touch lingering on Kara's jaw. “What did you do, help the mechanics out?”
The reporter takes over wiping her jaw, gently pulling Lena’s hand away from her and brushing the back of her other hand against the dirt. She frowns at the daub of grease against her skin. “Uh, yeah, probably,” Kara says with a blink. “I uh, there was, erm.” She clears her throat and suddenly beams, and when Lena looks behind her it’s James. “Hey! I got the um, pier story you requested?” Kara says pointedly.
Lena raises an eyebrow as she looks to the man. James, for his part, manages to keep confusion out of his features, but Lena is nothing if not intuitive. She knows James is in on the secret. She understands it’s because he is one of her close friends, even so far as being Clark’s best friend—oh, she knows about that, too—but there are times that she feels something close to resentment about being Kara’s best friend, yet there is this massive secret between them.
Does Kara not think of her as her best friend? The thought stings more than just her unrequited crush.
“Right, yes, thanks for that, Kara,” he says, cutting through Lena’s thoughts, and he awkwardly walks past them with a pat on the blonde’s shoulder.
“No problem,” Kara says with a small laugh before turning to Lena and gesturing to her desk. “I should, er, go write this, Lena,” she excuses. Lena just smiles and nods.
“I understand,” she says, and if Kara understood the meaning she is trying to imply, she doesn’t show it. The blonde walks away and Lena watches her.
//
The next time Kara apologizes and leaves Lena during brunch, it’s on a morning when she came in late with an excuse about her bus breaking down. They had to get off the bus, Kara said, and it took her almost half an hour to get on a bus because all of the ones that passed were full.
“Extremely full?” Lena had asked as she read through write-ups for an advertorial. She wasn’t looking at Kara but she could almost hear the blonde squirm.
“Y-yeah, I mean, I had to, uh, elbow my way in on the one I rode on.” Kara cleared her throat and gestured behind her. “Anyway. Gotta go talk to Snapper. Brunch?”
Lena had agreed with a hopeful smile. It had been relatively peaceful that time. They are in the middle of eating, Kara talking about Alex and her troubles with Maggie, when Kara’s phone buzzes. At least the blonde had made sure to keep it on silent this time. Lena watches her open the text, presumably, and there her crinkle goes. Somewhere in the distance, she hears an alarm blare, and then sirens.
“Yikes,” Kara says. She laughs and puts her phone down in a way that she probably thinks is casual. Lena looks up at her and watches the movements of her face—she had catalogued them by now because Kara had lied enough to her so many times about the whole Supergirl thing: She fidgets with her glasses, chuckles softly as she stares downwards, and when she looks up she squints very slightly as if it physically troubles her to lie. “So speaking of Alex. She wants to, uh, she needs help picking some I’m sorry flowers for Maggie.” She bites her lip and looks at Lena expectantly, like she’s waiting for permission, and how exactly does she say no to that?
“I understand,” Lena replies with a smile. Kara stands and grabs her phone, making her way to the door, but the CEO calls for her. Lena notices her hand on her collar and she thinks she sees the blue of her suit that the woman almost falters in her next words. “Hyacinths,” she says. Kara blinks. Lena chuckles; Kara needs to keep up with her own list of lies because clearly, she’s getting lost in them. “Blue hyacinths convey sincerity. Violet ones seek forgiveness. Whatever Alex is apologizing for, I’m sure Maggie would understand. It’s clear she loves her.”
Kara nods and murmurs a thank you. Lena smiles as she watches her go, then glares at the direction of the sirens. Must they always come between these meals she sometimes thinks of as dates? Can’t criminals extend a modicum of decency towards the sister of one of their best comrades? How rude.
//
Kara had promised to come to a wine-tasting event with her that weekend. Lena tries not to get her hopes up because evil doesn’t consider weekends, but she hopes anyway that maybe this time, they’ll get through one full night together.
They don’t. Barely twenty minutes and two sips into their first wine, Kara looks up from where she’s trying to describe the taste of the red liquid she’s nursing. There’s the crinkle, the restless twiddle of her hand on her glasses, and Lena hides the disappointment in her features by downing the wine in her glass.
“Sorry,” Kara starts as she turns to Lena, though she’s not looking directly at the raven-haired woman. Lena tries to smile. “I just remembered I forgot to- to turn my stove gas off.” She hands Lena her glass and the woman takes it without so much a word.
If Lena was selfish, she’d have probably demanded Kara to stay. If she had taken the lie at face value, she’d have told Kara to call her landlord to check himself so she doesn’t have to go. If she had courage, she’d have confronted Kara about her secret. Wouldn’t that be easier for both of them? Kara wouldn’t have to lie and Lena doesn’t have to suffer through yet another interrupted not-date alone.
“I understand,” she says anyway, because she does. There are bigger stakes than just her feelings, and Kara probably doesn’t care about the way her chest feels like it’s about to cave in as she watches her leave. Lena waits for the server and asks him to fill up both of her glasses. She downs both without much ado, not really caring for the taste anymore when she needed to banish her sobriety.
//
The event ends without sight or even a text from Kara. Lena calls her driver to pick her up. She’s too tipsy that she barely made it to her car. She doesn’t remember the drive home but she’s chugging a glass of water when her phone rings in her purse. Blindly reaching for it, she makes out Kara’s name and that grinning photo of hers on her contacts list. She answers, and Kara is off shooting with apologies.
“Lena, hey!” She starts, and through her intoxication Lena can hear her breathlessness. “I’m so sorry about leaving but good news, my apartment hasn’t blown up. My neighbor though, Mrs. Janet, stopped me on my way back because she needed help moving her furniture because of some feng shui reading, though I’m sure the paper she read it off of was from three years back but I didn’t know how to tell her.”
Kara laughs in between her little rant. Lena listens to her intently, despite knowing that this story is yet another lie. Feeling a little tipsy and a lot helpless, she cradles her glass against her chest and slides down to the floor, leaning back against the sink cabinet. She’s forgotten how many times this has happened before and it must be her drunkenness making her feel more vulnerable than usual but she laughs anyway, the sound hollow even to her own ears.
“I understand,” Lena says, and when she smiles this time it stings, but she realizes she’s crying. She brushes her tears away and stares at the dinner table in front of her. There are wilting flowers on the vase in the middle of it, and she wonders if the blonde’s lie from before about Alex and Maggie fighting had some ounce of truth in it.
She wonders just how much of Kara’s life she knows as truth, and how much of it is a lie.
“I’m sorry. Can we talk tomorrow? I’m just—I think I had too much wine.” Lena laughs humorlessly and shrugs, even though Kara can’t see. There’s silence on the other line and when Kara speaks, it’s much softer. Lena just feels sleepy. Tired.
“S-sure,” Kara says. “Brunch?”
Lena agrees and she says good night, but she stays seated there on her kitchen floor. She hugs her knees to her chest and wonders why it had to be like this. Maybe she should have just succumbed to the darkness her last name carries. Maybe it would have hurt less.
//
When Kara leaves yet again during the brunch she herself invited Lena to the next day, it’s with a smile that’s entirely too strained that she tells Kara I understand. The blonde hesitated from leaving but Lena shooed her way, echoing her excuse about a doctor’s appointment she forgot she had scheduled a week ago and can’t afford to cancel. When she left, Lena had wondered if that was how easy it had gotten for Kara to lie to her. Are there no more plausible excuses left? It was funny at first, with her excuses about a rescued raccoon that would give a nice touch to next week’s print or her alibi about arguing with a fellow customer in a coffee shop that they had, in fact, exchanged orders, but now it doesn’t feel like Kara cares anymore.
The rational part of her knows that Kara cares. That Kara is trying. That Kara is out there trying to save the world, and she should be thankful the blonde is still paying her attention when she could easily just leave her on the curb begging for the heroine’s company. She doesn’t know what to think though, not anymore, and the resentment she’s trying to box off grows. She has tried so hard to be good—maybe it isn’t enough. Should she turn to martyrdom and earn Kara’s trust, enough to make her believe she could keep her secret?
She doesn’t know.
It’s with shaking hands that Lena washes Kara’s lunch box that’s stained orange with the sauce from her sweet and sour chicken. Kara had let her taste it. It had been good and Kara had promised to bring her to the restaurant it’s from, but Lena has it on good faith that the blonde would probably be late, or would come up with an excuse about some emergency or another friend needing her help.
She’s drying the lunch box when she pauses as a thought hits her. She almost drops the tupperware when she thinks—what if Kara isn’t Supergirl, not really, and Kara is just coming up with reasons to get out of her time with Lena because she doesn’t want spending it with her? She had so many better friends after all—friends who aren’t Luthors, who don’t have a familiar history of going mad, other people who don’t have a crushing infatuation on her.
Friends who deserve her time more than Lena does.
//
Kara returns in a different pair of clothes. Lena finds the courage to tease her about hooking up with the doctor she visited. The blonde blushes furiously, her blue eyes mortified but lovely, still, and her cheeks dusted a shade of red that rivaled Lena’s lips. Oh, how she wants to kiss those cheeks. Lena mentally slaps herself as she tells Kara to make sure this little affair of hers steers clear of her work, and the blonde stammers beautifully that Lena just wants to kiss her.
That’s another thing—despite the worsening feeling of betrayal with Kara’s growing lies, it’s herself that Lena feels most betrayed with. Her crush isn’t going away and in fact, it’s getting worse too, and she attributes it to some twisted inclination to masochism.
Lena leaves the office to catch some fresh air at the balcony. When she returns, Kara is nowhere to be found, and she thinks her leaving without a word feels so much better than when she’s lying to her face.
//
She starts avoiding Kara.
It’s easier said than done when she literally has to roam around the office during work hours and Kara works there, but at least she just has to pretend she’s talking to someone and sooner or later, the blonde would leave with some excuse to whoever is listening.
//
It doesn’t work. Three days into her stupid plan, Kara corners her while she’s on her way to the advertising department to personally drop off art copies. Lena falters on her steps as Kara, seeming to carry the confidence Supergirl has on her shoulders, puts her hands on her hips and asks, outright:
“Are you avoiding me?”
It’s Lena’s turn to lie, this time, as she chuckles. “I’m not avoiding you, Kara,” she says simply. Her voice nor her gaze doesn’t waver and she thinks lying is easy, and perhaps that’s why Kara simply chose to never tell her the truth. It would open a can of worms, she knows. The blonde frowns despite what Lena thinks is an acceptable answer. She waves the stack of papers in her hands. “Just a little busy,” she adds. Kara relents and steps aside to let her go. She forgets about Kara’s super powers for a moment and she lets out a long sigh. When she realizes her mistake, she doesn’t dare look back to see the blonde’s reaction.
//
It happens again, the day after, when Lena declines Kara's offer for brunch together.
“I’m visiting L-Corp today,” Lena reasons as she rifles through the draft for the weekend’s print. “I need to sign some important papers, maybe check on everyone, too.”
Kara crosses her arms. Lena could feel her stare, and when she looks up to meet her gaze, she sees the crinkle on her forehead. The CEO braces herself for a lie.
“You’re so busy these days,” she says, “are you sure you’re not avoiding me?”
Lena chuckles and returns to her work. “Why would I be avoiding you, Kara?” She says softly. She frowns at a typographical error on a headline and encircles it with her red sharpie. “I’m merely working. Like you. At least without me around you don’t have to think of a lie when you have to fly off."
It slips before she can even think about it. When she realizes what she had said, she stills and holds her breath. This isn’t how she wanted to bring the topic up, but it’s out there, and she doesn’t think she can take it back. She sighs and picks up the draft along with her pen. “I need to take this to layout. There are too many errors,” she says, and she doesn’t wait for Kara to respond before she’s leaving.
Kara doesn’t follow her.
//
Lena is at L-Corp, seated on her old chair. Sam is off at a series of meetings so she’s perusing her office to go through all the paperwork she had to deal with. She is taking her time though, not really meaning to return to CatCo. Not after that almost-conversation with Kara. The mere thought of the woman makes her pause. Maybe it had been a bad idea, being friends with her and coming to know her, because now she feels a bizarre amalgam of emotions—unconditional affection, concern, betrayal, resentment. She sighs and drops her pen, then groans and covers her face with her hands.
When people said the last Luthor would end up dealing with the other Super, she didn’t think it would end up like this.
There’s a knock on the door. Lena lets out a shuddering breath and tries to fix her appearance before she tells them to come in, but she’s not prepared to be greeted by a sight of a very shaken-looking Kara. In her hands is a bouquet of flowers—a blue and purple bunch speckled with white. She drags her gaze from it to the blonde, who gives her a tight smile.
“Didn’t expect you to be here,” Lena says as a greeting. Kara adjusts her glasses and she hesitates before she walks closer to the CEO. She stands a few steps in front of the desk. Lena stares at her for a moment. “What can I help you with?”
Kara doesn’t speak. Instead, she lets out a long sigh, one so heavy Lena thinks she felt the weight of it too. She has an idea of what this conversation would entail and she crosses her arms against her chest in a defensive manner. Kara bites her lip.
“These… These are for you,” she says softly as she looks down at the flowers in her hand. She places it on the desk and Lena finally notices what it is: a bouquet of blue and purple hyacinths, with white lilies between them. Lena furrows her eyebrows at the sight of them and when she looks up, Kara looks like she’s in the verge of tears.
“I’m so, so sorry about lying to you,” she whispers, and the way her voice breaks almost shatters Lena too. She fights the urge to stand and wrap Kara in her arms—she needed this, after all. Not the apology, but the explanation, the confirmation or denial of her thoughts and worst fears. So she stays still, lips pursed, as she locks with Kara’s gaze. “I’ve wanted to tell you,” she continues. Her eyes are red with unshed tears and Lena knows it’s almost a display of her utter strength. “For so long. But I’ve—I never managed to, because I was scared, too scared of this conversation and I don’t think I would ever be strong enough for it but- but god, I realize how selfish I have been and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She sniffles but her tears don’t come. She thrashes her arms helplessly. “You’re all Kara Danvers has for herself. I didn’t want that to change.”
“I understand,” Lena says after a long stretch of silence. And she does. She offers Kara a small smile and a tilt of her head. Kara nods and hesitates before she’s gesturing to the door.
“I should go,” she whispers, sounding defeated, and she takes her first step just as Lena stands.
Lena isn’t sure how she reached Kara in time, but she’s pulling her by her wrist, and for all the betrayal she knows she is supposed to be feeling, the unconditional affection for Kara wins. She wraps her arms around the blonde and this—this is the first embrace she has ever initiated, and perhaps it’s the most important one, too. She tells Kara that she understands, yet again, and she feels the way Kara’s shoulders relax, finally, like she accepts the forgiveness she’s offered.
“I won’t lie to you ever again,” Kara says, and when she promises this time, it’s with such conviction that the resentment Lena feels burns to ashes.
“You’ll always have me, Kara,” she promises back.
//
Kara keeps her promise. This time, when she leaves during her time with Lena, she tells the CEO all the details of the scene she’s about to go into, and when she returns it’s with more details about how she dealt with it. Lena’s heart flutters as she listens to the heroine speak with truth and trust and she forgets there was ever a time before this, when Kara would open up to her like she’s the only person she could talk about these things to.
//
Kara keeps her promise. One time, when she leaves in the middle of game night, everyone looks at Lena as if waiting for her reaction to Kara flying out of her apartment window without so much as some emergency of sorts as an excuse, but Lena only shrugs and rolls the dice which lands her in jail.
She hates Monopoly. It’s the only business-related thing she sucks at.
//
Kara keeps her promise, and this time, Lena learns that Kara loves spending time with Lena. So much so that one girl's night, when Alex, Maggie, and Sam had gone home, she invites Lena to stay over and watch some reruns of Disney movies.
“Aren’t you too old for those?” Lena asks with a smile as she takes the spot beside Kara on the couch. The blonde scoffs but doesn’t say anything, instead plays Brave.
They finish it and it’s Lena who requests Moana because Kara says it’s a badass little film too, but the heroine falls asleep halfway through the movie. Lena doesn’t have the heart to wake her, not when she snores lightly against Lena’s shoulder, and she wonders how this woman had managed to steal small parts of her said heart until she holds it in her hands wholly.
Kara has her.
//
Kara keeps her promise, for some time, until one day she cuts through the story Lena is sharing. They are eating dinner at Kara’s place, sitting on the floor with bowls of undercooked pasta that Kara had prepared on the coffee table, when the blonde stops Lena from talking and she sighs that same sigh when she had told the CEO about her not-so-secret identity.
“I can’t do this,” she says, tears in her voice, and Lena’s heart almost stops at the implication of her words.
“Wh-what do you mean?” Lena asks. She stares at Kara with such fear and trepidation and the blonde only sighs.
“I don’t think I can lie anymore,” Kara whispers, and Lena almost breaks at the admission. She swallows thickly and nods, ready to listen to whatever Kara had to say.
“I think—” The heroine pauses. Lena sees tears fall from those lovely eyes and the woman doesn’t hesitate to sit up, reach out and wipe them away.
“I understand,” Lena says softly. Whatever Kara is lying about this time, she still understands—that hasn’t changed, not in a million years. She can wait until Kara has found a way to tell her. She knows she would. Kara shakes her head and laughs.
“You don’t, Lena,” she whines. Kara holds her by her wrists and when she meets those teary eyes, they’re oceans that Lena drowns in. “I think— I think I’m falling in love with you.”
Lena is unable to stop the relieved laugh that escapes her trembling lips, and she regrets it when she sees the hurt that pierces that lovely gaze. She holds on to Kara and scoots closer until she kneels in front of the seated woman and she presses her forehead against the heroine’s.
“You silly alien,” Lena says with a wet chuckle. Kara sniffles. Lena silences it with a press of lips against Kara’s. It’s soft, everything the Girl of Steel isn’t, and she melts under Lena’s touch.
“Of course I understand,” Lena whispers when she pulls back from the kiss. She brushes Kara’s tears away and only when Kara so tenderly sweeps her finger against Lena's cheeks does she realize she’s crying, too. “I understand, Kara. I think I’m falling in—no, no. That’s not it.” She smiles, then laughs, then captures Kara’s lips in another kiss that had the air leaving their lungs. “I’m in love with you.”
//
Kara keeps her promise, and Lena keeps hers too.