Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The attacks had become more incessant in the recent days.

Between trying to keep up with her deadlines and the increased amount of havoc being wrought on National City, Kara was beginning to find herself (not for the first time) being spread a little thin. And now with James putting himself in danger as the Guardian, and Alex happily in a relationship and not-so-subtly hinting that she hoped Kara would find the same happiness with someone, and some frat boy wanna-be trailing her like a puppy, Kara felt like it wasn’t going to take much more to send her straight into the looney bin.

She sighed frustratingly as her papers finally finished being printed. Grabbing them quickly, she spun to return to her desk and maybe actually make some headway on her latest article on alien segregation before she was inevitably called back to fight some villain or another when she collided ungracefully with the cup of coffee someone was holding while waiting for her to be done with the copier.

With a yelp, she quickly thrusts her papers out to the side to ensure their safety from coffee stains as her blouse became soaked with the dark brown liquid. Looking down at her stained and sopping wet shirt, Kara hung her head, closed her eyes and sighed. She didn’t look up to see who she ran into because she honestly didn’t care at this point. Hearing them begin to form an apology, she used her free hand to hold up and finger and silence them.

Then with another sigh, she dramatically stepped to the side of them, and walked somberly back to her desk, head held high with what little dignity she had left.

Sitting down and spreading her papers out in front of her dutifully, she shook her mouse to wake her computer screen up. Spilled coffee was not going to be her final break. It was just a small, minor inconvenience. No reason to take it as a sign from the world, she convinced herself. Scrolling through her documents, she found the one she was planning on writing and opened it. Her fingers settled on her keyboard, and her phone buzzed.

Her entire body tensed. With a shaky breath in and out, she composed herself, once again trying to convince herself that an alien attack before she could even get a word on the page was also definitely not a sign from the world. Slowly reaching for her phone, she unlocked it to read the DEO’s alert.

Needed at DEO.

She frowned at the message, a bit confused that it wasn’t describing any particular alien attack. In fact, the message wasn’t really describing much of anything.

Maybe this was a good sign from the world, she considered. Maybe this was her sign that today she was just going to fly over to the DEO, talk about whatever needed discussed, not worry about another attack for an hour, and definitely not lose her mind. The corners of her lips turned up ever so slightly, as she regained some of her usual perkiness as she stacked her papers back together in a neat pile, closed out of her document, and grabbed her phone.

With a bit of grit, she managed to bounce up from her desk. Walking towards the door, she signaled to Snapper who was looking unimpressed with someone else for once that she was going out for an interview, and he waved her off unperturbed. She sped up her step as soon as she received the go ahead, swerving around people to get to the elevator, and bouncing on her feet once she was in, eager to be in her suit and flying away.

The sooner she got to the DEO, the sooner she could return to finish her assignment.

“Alright, I’m here,” Kara announced to the group of people talking hushed in the center of the room. Immediately upon seeing her, they all silenced and looked toward her. “What do you need me for?” she asked non-chalantly, missing their expressions. “Some lab testing? Strategy? Interrogation?”

But eventually she caught on to the solemn looks painted on everyone’s face and faltered. Swallowing thickly she let out a shaky breath and looked towards the person she needed to hear whatever this was was from.

“Alex?” she called out, voiced unsteady.

Her sister seemed uncomfortable being singled out, but took a deep breath and took a step forward, fidgeting with her hands. “We think we have a lead on the cause of the increased attacks,” she explained slowly.

The information took a beat to hit. “Well that’s great, isn’t it?” Kara asked, trying to put some enthusiasm in her voice as she looked at the others. But when her eyes met Winn’s, they downturned and avoided hers, which made her falter again. “Why- why is that not good?”

Alex looked helpless to answer, and so J’onn had to step in gently.

“Kara, we think the attacks may have been perpetuated by Lex Luthor’s younger sister,” he explained, and her brow furrowed in deeper confusion.

“Lex Luthor doesn’t have a sister,” Kara stated. She definitely would have known about it if he had, or at the very least, Kal would’ve known about it and had warned her.

But at her words, everyone shifted uncomfortably again. “Yes well, it might be possible Lex Luthor doesn’t know he has a sister. Lionel’s daughter grew up with her mother, with Lionel being an anonymous benefactor throughout her life. Until this past week we didn’t know of her existence, let alone her interactions with her paternal family,” J’onn explained.

Kara took time to absorb all the information. “So you’re saying there’s a secret Luthor, who may have secretly been in contact with Lex, and is now secretly behind making my life a living hell?” she put together slowly.

Everyone considered this for a moment before J’onn once again responded. “In short, yes,” he agreed carefully. “Some evidence has been brought to our attention that could potentially link her to colluding with her family and to the attacks, but-” Kara cut him off.

“Well, then what’s the problem? Can we not locate her?” she asked, still perturbed by everyone’s expressions.

Alex spoke up this time. “That’s actually the opposite of the problem, Kara,” she whispered, and Kara’s eyes went from her sister’s to J’onn’s desperately for an explanation.

He sighed. “We have her in custody, ready to be interrogated. You have every right to in the room, Kara, but…” His sentence drawled off as he faltered.

“I- We don’t think you’ll want to,” Alex finished for him, avoiding eye contact with her sister.

Winn, still studying the floor intently, piped up for the first time the whole conversation. “It’s up to you! But uh-”

“Why wouldn’t I want to be in on it? This is Lex Luthor’s sister,” Kara pointed out, crossing her arms and becoming frustrated. “If she has something to do with the attacks then I want to know about it.” No one answered and remained standing stoically with their jaws clenched, as they tried to form an answer.

“You’re all being really weird about this,” Kara finally grumbled, with a bit of a pout, and began stomping quietly off to the interrogation room determinedly. She could handle Lex Luthor’s sister, she was Supergirl for Rao’s sake.

The group sprang into action upon seeing her begin to move towards the room. Alex was the first to reach her, jumping between her and the interrogation room door as Kara was reaching for the doorknob.

“Kara, wait, just,” Alex huffed and clenched her eyes shut, trying to compose herself. Opening her eyes again and softly setting her hands on her sister’s shoulders, Alex tried to convey her trepidation and warning. “The girl in there might not be someone you want to face, and you need to know that it’s okay i-if you don’t.”

Rolling her eyes, Kara tried to sidestep her sister, but Alex held firm. “Alex, c’mon,” Kara complained, stomping her foot. This had really already been too long of a day, and Kara just needed to get this thing over with the mysterious Luthor sooner rather than later. “She’s a Luthor, and I get why you’re worried, and I know it’s not going to be a walk in the park, but have a little more faith in me,” she reasoned. But Alex’s expression didn’t falter.

“I’m serious, Kara,” she responded, and her sister finally became frustrated.

“Alex, get out of my way,” she demanded, and held Alex’s sad eyes in a glare, before her sister finally relented and let go of Kara to step out of the way of the door. With a huff, Kara grabbed the door handle and twisted it open.

Pushing inside, still running off the adrenaline of frustration, the first thing she noticed about the girl sitting boredly chained to the table and fiddling her fingers was her dark hair. But upon the door opening, the girl’s eyes shot up to whoever just walked in, and as soon as the piercing shade of green Kara would never be able to forget locked with her own eyes, Kara stopped.

It felt like she was drowning, or like the ground had just dropped out from underneath her and she was in a freefall. It felt like her skin was burning up in a fire raging around her, or her lungs had just been frozen. It felt like she had just been kicked in the gut.

Because she hadn’t seen those eyes in six years. And this was the last place she ever thought she’d see them again.

As Kara stood stunned at the doorway, at least some mortification was mollified by the fact the girl sitting at the table seemed just as stunned as she was. Several moments passed before either of them could breathe, let alone form a coherent thought.

The air was thick with tension around them as the initial shock of their meeting was soon modified to their respective positions on the situation. Kara’s demeanor shifted towards a sense of anger and betrayal; the girl’s went towards a sense desperation and pleading.

She was the first to speak.

“Kara,” her voice rasped, and it sent a shock through Kara’s system as she jolted and blinked back into the realization of who was sitting in front of her.

The girl was crying, and Kara took a step back, whole body shaking.

She couldn’t be here. She couldn’t be around this girl, and hear her voice, and watch her cry. She couldn’t think her name, or Rao forbid, say it outloud. It would ruin years of disciplining herself to never go search, never reach out, never even think about her. It would ruin everything; she would ruin everything. She already had.

And now here she was doing it again.

Her hands felt wet and she looked down in surprise to find there were tears falling on them. Did she remember beginning to cry? Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she looked back up and found the sight causing her so much distress.

The girl whom Kara vowed to never see again. Sitting chained to the table in the interrogation room.

The second part of that sight began setting in then. The girl in this room was supposed to be Lex Luthor’s sister. The realization hit her all at once, as she unsteadily took a step back and began to find it harder and harder to breathe.

She could not be here.

She should have taken the coffee as a sign. She should have taken everything as a sign that this was going to happen to her. She should have taken Alex’s warning. She should have changed every decision she ever made that led her to be in this room with this girl under this circumstance.

And fumbling behind her to find the door, Kara quickly turned and ran from the room, everyone parting to form a path through them to allow her to go.

She pretended she didn’t hear the voice calling out to her desperately to come back.

Chapter Text

Kara ran into the first empty room she could find, bracing herself against the wall, staring blankly at nothing, and breathing heavily, until Alex finally found her.

“Hey,” Alex cooed, gently rubbing her sister’s back slowly managing to turn her around so they were facing each other. The tears still marred Kara’s cheeks, so Alex gently wiped them with her sleeve and forced her into a hug her sister couldn’t find in herself to reciprocate.

“She-” Kara started, but she couldn’t find it in herself to say outloud the crimes this girl had committed against her. So instead she allowed herself to be pulled tighter into the hug as her sister assured it it was okay.

“I know, Kara. I know who she is,” Alex whispered in her ear, and Kara clung to her tighter. “As soon as we found her in National City, I wanted to-”

Kara shot back from her sister in surprise. “She was here?” she asked desperately, her eyes wildly searching in confusion.

Alex--caught off guard--began stuttering for an answer. “Y-yes? I think our records said she moved here about two years ago?” she finally responded, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion.

Two years ago. Around the time Supergirl made her debut. Kara’s stomach turned at the thought of her moving across the country to find her.

Seeing the nauseous look on her sister’s face, Alex decided to tread lightly into the next question she had wanted to ask for six years. “Kara,” she began quietly, “What happened between you two?”

An involuntary shudder let out at the loaded question. Kara pondered it for awhile. It had always been hard to define what had happened between them, at least to Kara. The problem was, several things happened between them, but really only one that mattered. And Kara was still haunted by the disgusted look on her face as she walked away that night.

Glancing up at Alex, she considered her options. Back then she had been so nervous to tell her sister, but a lot had changed since then. Alex started dating Maggie; but she also had to factor in the recent development of “Lex Luthor’s sister”. Plus, she was six years late to this conversation, and she wasn’t sure how Alex would take that. Kara bit her lip, unsure of how much to divulge.

But taking her sister’s pause as her unwillingness to share anything, Alex sigh frustratingly. “Kara, was she bullying you?”

Kara blinked in surprise at this as her eyes shot up to Alex’s, genuinely taken aback. Her eyebrows furrowed as she realized exactly how her sister would come to that conclusion, and by the look in her eyes, she seemed pretty adamant in the belief.

Realizing she wasn’t going to be able to get out of this conversation now, Kara scoffed. “Alex, no,” she reasoned, but Alex remained set on beating the truth out of her solely with the stern look on her face. “Alex,” Kara leveled with her, feeling the most sane she had all afternoon. “I was not bullied by Lena Michaels. We-” her voice got caught in her throat, body protesting the sound of her name for the first time in six years. Biting her cheek and allowing her tears to form again, Kara averted her eyes to her fidgeting hands. “It wasn’t like that,” she finally whispered.

Peeking out from her head’s downward turned position, Kara watched as Alex’s expression morphed from concerned confusion to the raised eyebrows of realization.

Blushing intensely, Kara downturned her eyes again as the first tears began to fall. Alex sighed sadly at all the implications of what she just put together.

“Oh Kara,” she whispered like an apology.

Seven years ago

“Oh my god, I am so so sorry!”

Lena stared in shock as her scalding hot coffee absorbed into the pink cardigan of the girl she just ran into. The girl’s wide blue eyes didn’t seem to register what just happened as they watched Lena dumbly. Quickly snapping into action, Lena sat her now mostly empty coffee down on the nearest table and grabbed several napkins to help clean up what had to be painfully hot coffee.

“I’m usually not this clumsy,” she began apologizing profusely, unsure of what to make of the girl’s complete silence on the situation. “I swore that lid was on tight. Oh god, this has to hurt so much,” she began rambling, and she began patting down the girl’s chest with napkins, feeling bad for how bright her cheeks were turning, surely from the heat of the liquid spilled on her. “And you’re cute cardigan is completely ruined. I- I don’t have much in the way of cash right now, but if you want me to pay for dry cleaning, I can figure something out,” she offered.

The blonde’s mouth hung dryly open, as if she were dumbfounded, but when Lena’s eyes met hers again, her eyes quickly snapped down to survey the damage on her shirt. “Oh, uh, yeah,” she stuttered, speaking to her for the first time, and Lena’s stomach dropped a little. She had no idea how much dry cleaning cost, but she was sure it would take at least a meal from her funds.

Seeing the slightly crestfallen look on her face, the girl’s eyes widened urgently and began shaking her head. “Wait, no, no, no!” she exclaimed, startling Lena. “I- I meant, yeah, t-this hurt. Uh, ouch! But I don’t need you to pay for dry cleaning, this was old anyways.”

Lena quirked her eyebrows curiously at the girl’s strange response, but mostly felt relief at the prospect of not missing a meal this week. But she felt bad, so she offered again. “Are you sure? Because I can really-”

“No I’m sure!” the girl squeaked encouragingly, with an earnest but shy smile Lena couldn’t resist reciprocating.

With a soft nod, she let out a deep breath. “Okay, well, thank you,” she murmured sincerely, finding herself lost in the eyes hadn’t taken time to fully notice before. Surely they hadn’t always been such a brilliant blue?

They both stood there dumbly looking at each other for a few more seconds before Lena snapped out of her trance. “I- uh, have class,” she explained apologetically, unsure of the reason. She quickly bent down to her side and picked up her cup and found herself still standing awkwardly in front of the girl. “So- uh- sorry again! I’ll see you around!” she finally bid a farewell probably too cheerful, and quickly turned to bolt, her cheeks beginning to flush with a slight embarrassment.

Why had she said she would see the girl again? It wasn’t like she knew her, or the girl would want to know her after spilling an entire cup of coffee on her. God, that girl probably thought she was so weird. She cringed at the memory as she frustratingly threw her coffee cup in the trash outside the cafe.

But what she didn’t see was the girl still standing in the cafe unmoving, holding a hand half way up to a wave, and a “See you” ghosted on her lips.

Lena couldn’t get the girl from the cafe out of her head.

It wasn’t unusual for her mind to get stuck on one thing. Her mother often jested she was always finding a new subject to become obsessed with. When she was thirteen, she convinced her neighbor to teach her the ins and outs of a car engine. When she was seventeen, she saved up her money to buy a novice coding book and learned four different coding languages. Last year her friends insisted she find something to help her relax, and so she decided to teach herself piano, practicing two hours every day.

Her mind was very dedicated when it wanted to be. But it had never been stuck on a person before, especially not one she hadn’t exchanged more than a few sentences with.

There were the obvious reasons to be intrigued by the girl. The strange way she talked and the way she wasn’t concerned a whole cup of scalding coffee was poured on her. And yet Lena’s mind was hooked on other things. How struggled to speak at all. How she stared at her with those gorgeous blue eyes. Lena almost wondered-

She sighed in frustration, shaking herself out of her thoughts. Refocusing on her dynamics problem at hand, she picked up her pencil and shook it in her hand, resting her head on hand. It was incredibly hard to focus on pendulums and angular momentum when all her mind seemed to want to think about was the clearest color of blue.

Resigning herself to defeat for the time being, Lena huffed and closed her eyes. When she opened them, they began roaming around the library boredly, until they met a very familiar color. She almost thought she was imagining it for a split second, but no. There across the room was the girl.

The realization sent a jolt through her body, as her legs hit the underside of the table and she sat up quickly. The girl seemed mortified, if the dark red cheeks were any indication, to be caught staring across the room at her, yet still unable to move. She was caught and was cringing at that prospect. Lena could see her eyes contemplating her options: bolting or approaching.

Lena honestly wasn’t sure which one she wanted her to do.

She watched the girl, shaking a bit, waiting in anticipation for her decision. Eventually, the girl took a deep breath and steeled herself; she took a step towards her. The breath caught in Lena’s throat, unsure of what to say to her when she got to the table.

“I forgot they have the shitty coffee here.”

Lena was ripped away from the blue she still wasn’t accustomed to seeing towards the person slamming a cup of coffee down beside her unceremoniously and throwing himself into the chair next to her.

Right. Jack. Jack her boyfriend. Jack her boyfriend who just went to get them coffee and she definitely shouldn’t have forgotten about.

She doubled back on her thoughts while shooting Jack a strained smile and picking up her coffee. She didn’t forget about him. Her thoughts were wandering and she was caught off guard by the girl.

The girl.

Her eyes shot back up to where she was standing earlier, but it was too late. She was gone.

Lena fought the urge to groan, and turned back to her homework, ignoring Jack’s incessant grumbling to himself about the coffee. There was no reason for her to be worrying more about this random girl than her boyfriend. She was just a girl that she ran into once.

“Fuck this shit, I’m going to get a refund,” Jack proclaimed as he once again slammed out of his seat and ripped Lena’s coffee from her hand.

Sighing, Lena looked after him, and then finally forced herself to focus on her worksheet. Dynamics and Jack were enough to worry about in her life. She didn’t need some girl added to that list.

Lena couldn’t think of a single good reason to go out that night, but the problem stood that she couldn’t think of a single good reason to not go out, and so Jack and her friends eventually won out. And now she found herself in the back of a crowded car on Jack’s lap bringing driven to a party at the house of someone no one in the car knew.

So far, the night seemed promising, Lena thought to herself with bitter sarcasm.

She held her breath for the moment the car would stop and they could get out. Jack--as per usual--had pre-gamed a lot before they left, and his hands liked to roam a lot more when there was alcohol in his system. Which Lena was usually fine with, except when she was forced into close quarters with him when she’d rather just be in her bed sleeping. It lowered her tolerance significantly.

As soon as the car stopped, and Lena saw the flashing lights of the party through the other moving bodies in the car, she let out a sigh of relief and quickly swung open the car door behind her to jump out. As she did, Jack let out a groan, and Lena rolled her eyes.

When Jack exited the car after her, he slid his arms around her and rested his forehead against hers. “What do you think, babe? Do I have a good chance of getting laid tonight?” he murmured, and Lena bit her tongue to hold back an actual scoff.

“The only way I’m laying you tonight is if I drag your passed out body to your bed and tuck you in,” she retorted, trying to keep the response dry, but inevitably letting a bit of venom in.

The reaction was immediate. Jack quickly pulled back from Lena, and slammed the car door shut behind him, walking up to the party without even a glance back at Lena. She heard a “You’re always a bitch when we go out.” on the way, and she tried not to let it get under her skin.

But it did. It always did.

Because there was a time she thought Jack could be her everything. He pretty much convinced her of it. He spent the better part of their freshman year trying to win her over, and when he finally did, she was treated like there was no one better in the world.

And slowly, Lena started realizing the changes in his attitude, and behavior. But she let it go because she was sure she was just imagining things. And then they got worse. And now they were here.

And here wasn’t so bad, she figured. He’d never physically hurt her, or done anything she said she was explicitly against. But she could still feel the gap between them. The emotional challenges it sometimes felt like he was putting her through on purpose. And then it’d get better. And then it’d get ten times worse. It was an endless loop.

But she figured the guy she fell for was probably worth it. She also figured when it was no longer worth it, which would probably happen eventually, she would be able to handle it however necessary. And so with a sigh, she followed him and all her friends into the house.

The first thing she noticed as she passed through the door was how hot it was in the house. She pressed and weaved through the bodies, trying to hide her uncomfortable expression so as to not seem as out of place as she felt. It probably didn’t work. She thought she saw Sam’s long brunette hair, but when she tapped on her shoulder, she awkwardly found out that it was not, in fact, her friend Sam. With a mumbled apology and keeping her head down, Lena ducked back through the crowd, hoping to just find an escape at this point. She would find her friends eventually, but not if she suffocated first.

With relief, she noticed the crowd thinned out as it moved into the living room from the entry hall. She stumbled out of the crowd and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, allowing the incessant beat of the all too loud music wash through her. Letting the breath out slowly, she opened her eyes to survey where she’d come out of the crowd at.

Her body froze immediately. Blue. That blue.

It had been weeks since the incident in the library. Weeks she had tried to get those eyes out of her head, and had failed. She had almost convinced herself the girl was a complete figment of her imagination, because it wasn’t a huge campus, and to not run into her for weeks seemed almost impossible.

And yet, here she was. Standing in front of her with pure shock on her face as their eyes locked.

The person standing next to the girl murmured something to her that she didn’t even acknowledge and then walked away. And while there were several people still around them, it felt like they had been left alone. Lena’s heart stuttered.

Blinking to reality, the girl seemed to snap into herself, probably emboldened by the alcohol in her cup, and began walking towards Lena. She felt stuck, glued to the ground, because her whole mind was screaming, but Lena couldn’t decipher what, and so she was left with her only thought being “I’m not drunk enough for this”. Which she briefly thought was a strange thing to think, but then the girl was standing in front of her, and thinking was really a thing happening for her anymore.

“Hey!” the girl squeaked, offering a bright, nervous smile, to which Lena offered a shy one back. “I, uh, didn’t know you’d be coming,” she stated, and Lena tried to think of an answer as she swallowed thickly. But the girl quickly spoke up again before Lena could respond. “Not that I would have any way of knowing you were coming because duh, we don’t know each other, so I’m not sure why I said that, but-”

“It’s good to see you too,” Lena finally cut in, needing to calm the girl down. The statement, however, did nothing for her own nerves.

But the girl’s eyes lit up at her words, and her chest fluttered at the sight. They both remained silent for a moment before the girl seemed to come across a realization.

“Oh, golly, where are my manners? Do you need anything? A drink or something?” she asked quickly and earnestly.

Lena eyed her with a soft smile. “Yeah. I’ll um just have whatever you’re drinking,” she stated, and the girl let out a little giggle at that as she lead Lena across the room to a cooler.

“You don’t want what I’m drinking,” she replied matter-of-factly. “It would kill you.” The words were blunt, and Lena was almost taken aback by them, as the girl bent down to the cooler to pull something out for Lena.

Faking an affronted expression, she pursed her lips. “Are you calling me a lightweight?” she asked in an offended voice.

“Not in the least,” the girl replied chirpily with a smirk, standing back up and handing Lena a beer.

Lena considered the drink being held out before her and the response that had come with it. Then with a shrug, she decided to accept both willingly.

“Babe, do you have my wallet?”

Lena fought hard against the natural cringe that took over her body at the harsh voice of her drunk boyfriend.

“No, I haven’t seen it,” she responded calmly, turning away from the girl towards Jack with a sigh.

He grunted and rolled his eyes. “Yeah I should have known. You’ve always been a useless drunk,” he spat and then stormed away.

An involuntary flinch passed through her body at the words, and after a quick pause of watching as Jack disappeared back into the crowd, she popped open her beer tab angrily, and took a healthy chug of it.

When she finished, she sighed, and turned back to the girl sheepishly. “Sorry about that,” she apologized, and the girl just studied her with furrowed eyebrows and a frown.

“That’s your boyfriend right?” she asked concerned. Unable to verbally respond, Lena avoided eye contact and nodded slightly. “You should dump him,” the girl told her definitively.

Lena’s eyes narrowed as they shot up to the girl’s and caught her off guard. Apparently realizing she was out of line, her eyes widened.

“Oh, Rao, that’s something I’m not supposed to say, is it? I’m sorry, I generally don’t talk to people when I drink, and I just didn’t think. And I’m sorry,” the girl apologized profusely, and Lena found her frustration with the girl’s comment slipping away just like that.

“No, no, you’re fine,” she offered instead. Her eyes wandered away from the girl as she took a deep breath. “I know he seems shitty now, but you don’t know all of him.” The girl considered this for a few moments.

Then, with a serious tone, she responded, “You deserve for all of him to not be shitty.”

Something stirred in Lena’s stomach. How curious that this girl whom she was just now truly meeting for the first time could say something that affected her so. She wanted to dwell on it, but the beer she just chugged was making it hard to really dwell on anything besides those goddamn eyes, and god, now that she had time to actually study this girl up close and not in a cardigan, she could also tell she was ripped, and the thought sent a shiver down Lena’s spine.

“Why do you care?” Lena finally asked, free of suspicion, purely from curiosity. The girl froze and something flashed through her eyes that Lena couldn’t quite place.

“We’re leaving,” Jack’s voice demanded as a firm hand gripped her forearm. She turned quickly to protest buy Jack just continued to drag her away.

Trying to pull herself out of his grip, Lena struggled against her boyfriend. “Jack, we just got here,” she finally managed to argue, but he seemed unperturbed.

“Yeah, and this party sucks, so we’re leaving,” he explained. Sighing and submitting herself to the forced evacuation, she turned briefly to see the girl behind her, with that same look in her eye, except possibly intensified.

As Jack pulled her through the crowd, her mind did that one track thing again. It replayed that look over and over in her head and tried to decipher what it meant, and what exactly it made her feel. But she just couldn’t put her finger on it.

Jack grumbled as he struggled to bring them both through the crowd, not that Lena’s heavy feet were helping anything. “God, you were not this bad when we first started dating,” he complained.

Lena bit back a retort that said “Well back then you looked at me like I was worth everything, so the feeling’s mutual.” But with that thought, a piece clicked in her mind.

How that girl was looking at her. It was how Jack-

“I need to go back,” Lena suddenly demanded, and turned to once again fight against Jack’s grip. It wasn’t a well thought out plan, she would admit later. Thinking her boyfriend would be okay with going back and getting that girl’s number. Hell, she’d be okay with just getting that girl’s name. That probably made her a bad girlfriend, she scolded herself in her drunken state.

Jack’s hand tightened to a point that made Lena yelp. “We’re leaving,” he stated with finality. And with no other options, Lena allowed him to lead her out the same door they came in.

Except Lena felt she was walking out a different person.

Chapter Text

“You two…” Alex’s sentence trailed off as she tried to process what she just realized. Her eyes searched Kara’s for any confirmation, but Kara was decidedly avoiding her gaze with a small squeak of admission.

Alex let out a shaky sigh and ran her hand through her hair. “So you two were, what? Dating? Flirting? Hooking up?” Alex fished, but Kara let out an exasperated huff.

“Alex,” she growled, clearly trying to get the message across that this wasn’t a particular subject she wanted to get into, but her sister held her ground.

“What?” she asked, unable to keep a little sting out of her voice, and Kara was unable to come up with a response besides gritting her teeth and continuing to avoid eye contact. “Kara, I’m just trying to understand, because one year ago I came out to you, and you didn’t say anything.”

“There was nothing to say!” Kara lashed out, taking them both by surprised. Alex flinched but then studied her sister carefully as she began fidgeting with her hands.

After a moment of silent contemplation, Alex murmured, “Clearly there was.” Then she clenched her eyes shut and brought her hands to her forehead as if to manually sort out her thoughts. “Okay,” she finally in a calmer voice. “Okay, that was unfair of me to expect you to tell me the moment you liked a girl, but we could have done this together-”

“No, Alex, you aren’t getting it,” Kara cut her off, her eyes finally meeting her sister’s in a blaze, making Alex falter. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

Alex’s jaw stiffened as she looked at her feet and placed her hands on her hips. “Lena Michaels is sitting in our interrogation room right now because she’s the younger sister of the man who almost killed your cousin, and that’s the first time I’ve said her name to you in six years. I don’t care if you don’t want to Kara, but we have to talk about this now. We should have talked about it then!” Alex demanded, her exasperation seeping into her voice, and Kara’s expression matched hers.

“What do you want me to say Alex!” she shot back. “ ‘I fell in love with Lex Luthor’s little sister and thought I would spend the rest of my life with her until she betrayed every level of my trust, destroyed me and told the whole school I was an alien’? Is that what you needed to hear?”

Kara’s eyes searched Alex’s wildly as Alex bit her cheek and fought the tears pooling behind her eyes. She had fucked up. She had fucked up so immensely she wasn’t even sure if she could fix it at this point.

Taking a shaky breath, she shook her head. “No, I- Kara, I’m sorry, I should have-”

“That’s what I thought,” Kara cut her off bitterly, and shoulder checked her as she stalked out of the room.

Alex buried her face in her hand. She had really really fucked up.

Seven Years Ago

“Is anyone sitting here?”

Lena almost let out a cry of relief when the blue eyes shot up to hers and immediately lit up. She had been standing in the corner of the cafe she had first literally ran into the girl in, watching her at a table. It was creepy and stalker-ish and Lena tried to convince herself several times to just let it go and leave, but after a few minutes of her entire body being at war with itself, she eventually worked up the courage to walk over and ask to sit down.

“N-no!” the girl stammered and shot Lena an uncertain smile that faltered. Giving her her own strained smile, Lena pulled out the chair and sat down.

They sat there in silence for a few seconds and Lena mentally kicked herself for not preparing herself for what to do after she sat down. Both of them fidgeted with their coffee, but while Lena’s cheeks remained a rosy color, unsure of what to say, she noticed out of her peripheral that the girl was watching her warily.

Finally, she sighed, and painted the biggest grin she could manage at the moment on her face, as she looked up and connected her eyes with the blue she wanted to become familiar in her life. “I’m sorry about the other night,” she offered, and the girl’s look softened a bit.

“No no, I’m the one who should be sorry,” she retaliated, shaking her head a bit. “I was… more intoxicated than I planned on being that night. What I said was out of line.”

Lena pursed her lips at this, unsure of how to respond. “No, you’re fine, it’s- Jack can come off a bit abrasive sometimes,” she finally finished lamely, and dropped her eyes again. This was a mistake to talk to this girl, to even entertain her drunken idea. She noticed the girl bristle at her response, and Lena almost bolted at the sight, but when she opened her mouth again to say something, Lena found herself frozen in her spot, waiting in anticipation.

“Why are you talking to me?” she finally squeaked, and Lena stiffened.

They held their gazes for a moment before Lena let out a sigh. “I want to know your name?” she eventually tried, wanting it to sound like a light hearted joke, but knowing it just came off as an incredibly nervous question.

The girl considered this for a moment, and then reluctantly relented. “Kara,” she stated quietly.

Lena’s heart swelled at the tiny victory. “I’m Lena,” she tried responding without too much excitement, but any excitement she had was swallowed thickly as soon as the girl’s--Kara’s--eyes met hers unimpressed.

“You didn’t really answer the question,” she pointed out, and Lena could tell from the look in her eyes that Kara didn’t want to sound off putting, but she was just being cautious. And maybe she should have taken it as a sign to stop pursuing this, but Lena couldn’t stop now.

Which is why she--with a sudden bout of confidence--next said, “I want to be your friend.”

Kara seemed skeptical at this and studied Lena intensely, once again causing a blush to make an appearance on her cheeks. “We both already have friends,” Kara finally commented, biting her cheek.

“I don’t have a friend like you,” Lena responded a bit breathlessly without think, causing her blush to intensify in shade. She took a bit of comfort in seeing the light red begin to creep into Kara’s cheeks as well, and she could see the girl’s walls beginning to break down. Lena didn’t want to get too hopeful though.

Glancing down at her coffee, and then back up at Lena, Kara shook her head lightly. “You don’t know me,” she retorted.

Lena’s gaze held hers for a moment. Finally, she answered, “Exactly.”

She watched as Kara’s eyes once again ducked from hers, and Lena was fighting hard internally to keep her hope from surging through her. She just really wanted Kara to say-

“Okay, fine,” Kara relented, allowing a hint of a goofy grin to curl the corners of her mouth. Lena’s heart gave an irregular beat as she processed the answer. “We- I would really like to be friends,” she admitted, biting her lip as if she were unsure whether or not she made the right decision.

Teeth clenching down on her cheeks in an attempt to keep herself from jumping up in victory, Lena instead subdued her reaction to a silly, shy smile. Her heart was pounding far too much for making a new friend, but she pushed through and giddily asked, “Can we trade numbers then? So I don’t have to spill my coffee or chug a beer to talk to you?” Her hands were shaking, but she was impressed the question still managed to come out playfully.

Kara rolled her eyes nicely at this. “Of course,” she murmured, and they gently traded phones. Once the information was put it, they traded back, and Lena shot her a genuine smile, to which Kara reciprocated with her own.

“I have to get to class, but I’ll, um, talk to you later?” Lena asked, waving her phone at Kara as she stood up from her seat. Kara nodded back in confirmation with a small smile, and Lena breathed a sigh of relief and walked for the door.

If she would have turned around as she left, she would have seen Kara slammed her head down on the table.

“Is Kara coming?”

Lena ignored the tingling feeling in her chest at the question and chalked it up to already being slightly buzzed for the night, which she blamed on Sam who insisted they had to try their jungle juice before serving it to their future guests. “Yeah,” Lena answered noncommittally, refusing to meet her friend’s gaze. “She should be here any time. She had some kind of family thing today.”

Lena hefted the large five gallon cooler up onto her counter while Sam stayed thoughtfully silent for a moment. The two of them had been hosting quite a few pre-gaming parties in the past months, mostly to Jack’s insistence, and Lena figured Sam’s curiosity was justified as Kara’s absence from Lena’s side had become a rare commodity. But something about the question nagged at Lena as she grabbed the cups from under the counter.

“You two have been inseparable lately,” Sam commented finally, breaking the silence. Lena froze.

With wide eyes and a panicked look, Lena turned to face her friend, finally aware of the trepidation in the conversation. Sam thought Kara replacing her, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. Sam’s eyebrows crinkled at Lena’s expression as she sputtered to explain.

“Sam, you know I’m not trying to- You’ll always be my- I know I spend a lot of time with her, but you and Ruby are still-”

Eyebrows lifting in realization, Sam cut Lena off with an amused laugh. “Lena, Lena, woah,” she interrupted, waving her arms in a motion to stop her. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I’m just saying I’m… happy for you.”

Sam tried to give Lena a meaningful look, but she had ceased breathing. Her jaw was clenched and her eyes bore into Sam’s, trying not to read into what she had just said, but she couldn’t help it. Maybe it was the slight buzz she was feeling, or maybe it was just all the times she was up late at night wondering if she even knew what she was feeling. But either way, Sam’s look restirred the feelings in her brain she often tried to push away while preparing to be with Kara.

Realizing she hadn’t answered yet, Lena tried furrowing her eyebrows to and opening her mouth to refute the idea Sam seemed like she was pushing, but before she got the chance, a voice rang out from behind her.

“Hey! Sorry I’m late; Eliza never lets a goodbye last shorter than thirty minutes when she visits,” Kara chuckled as she came up beside Lena and bumped her hip with a playfully sly smile. “Promise I’ll make it up to you though,” she finished with a faux-seductiveness in her voice that Lena couldn’t help but swallow thickly and offer a weak smile to as Kara laughed again and sat her bag on the table.

Sam watched the interaction with eyebrows raised and a knowing smirk, but Lena was too busy trying to recenter herself to notice.

The pre-game party passed as most others had that Lena and Sam had hosted. Most people became more intoxicated than they planned to at the pre-game, and Sam, Lena, and Kara ended up in a corner somewhere people watching, and not near as drunk as everyone else. Sam because she would have to pick up Ruby by the end of the night from her grandmother’s. Lena and Kara because neither trusted themselves drunk around each other.

“Hey,” Lena slurred, when Kara walked away at one point to get everyone refills. “What did you mean earlier?” Her head heavily swung around to meet Sam’s eyes, and okay, she might be more drunk than she usually allows herself to be around Kara, but the look Sam had given her kept haunting her thoughts, and so she had been too preoccupied to notice the amount she was drinking.

Sam scrunched her face in confusion, trying to pinpoint what Lena was referencing. Catching on to her confusion, Lena waved her hand noncommittally in front of her and tried to explain.

“You know, with like, the look. And the ‘I’m happy for you’. And all that stuff,” Lena clarified, mumbling off at the end realizing how pathetic she sounded in the moment.

Sam however just shot her a sympathetic smile. “I meant exactly what I said, Lee,” she offered, but Lena didn’t appreciate the response.

Stomping her foot and turning to Sam exasperated, she exclaimed helplessly, “Yeah, but what did you mean?”

Slightly taken aback by her outburst, Sam stood a little straighter and widened her eyes. She considered her next words very carefully. “Lee, I just,” she started, and then trailed off, trying to find the words. “I see the way you two look at each other.”

Tears immediately sprung to her eyes as what she feared was brought into reality. “I-I’m not- I can’t-” she stuttered, trying to explain her reservations on the situation and Sam’s hand was immediately caressing Lena’s cheek and soothing her.

“Hey, hey, I know,” she whispered. “I know how scared you are. I’m just saying that she’s good for you, Lee. And I’m glad you have her.”

By this point, Lena was very nearly biting holes into her cheeks trying to keep her tears at bay. Seeing her friend’s distress in her body language, Sam wrapped Lena in a tight hug, in which she unwound and began quietly sobbing. This was not how Lena wanted her night to go.

“Oh my gosh, Lee, are you okay?” Kara’s voice called out with concern from behind her, and Lena let out a little laugh at Kara catching her crying at her recent revelation. Or, not so much revelation, but more acknowledgement of a past revelation.

Pulling away from Sam and wiping her tears softly, Lena turned to Kara with a strained smile. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay,” she tried to offer, but it wasn’t enough to assuage the clear concern portrayed in Kara’s face. Before she could comprehend it, she was buried tightly in Kara’s arm, and she couldn’t help but to snuggle deeper into the warm embrace and cry a little longer. She just felt so undeniably safe there.

A ring began coming from Sam’s pocket, and both girls untangled themselves from each other just enough to look over at their friend who was now wearing a concerned look as she tried to listen to the person on the other end over the noise of the party.

After listening intently for a few moments, Sam answered with an urgent tone, “I’ll be right there.” Then quickly ending her call, she frantically began doing something on her phone. Realizing she had an audience of two, her eyes shot up with a pleading desperation. “Ruby came down with a fever. I’m calling an Uber right now to go pick her up, but-” her eyes flashed quickly around the room at the fifty or so people who were partying, and then looked back at Lena meaningfully.

Catching her meaning, Lena quickly jumped to answer her unasked question. “I’ll get everyone out of here, don’t worry about it. Go. Go get your daughter, I’ll see you soon,” Lena reassured her and embraced her in a short hug. Sam nodded gratefully and began weaving her way through the crowd and out the door.

With a deep breath, Lena turned to the crowd and stood on a chair near her. “Alright everyone, pre-game is over! Please move out!” She was met with several groans, but most people began reluctantly complying and gathering their things, that is, until another voice rang out into the room.

“Pre-game isn’t over until I say it is!” Jack announced, and Lena picked out his glowering face in the crowd, quickly moving towards her. Lena suppressed a groan, unsurprised Jack would be putting up a fight, but irritated nonetheless.

When he got to her, his hand gripped her wrist tightly and yanked her down from the chair. Lena yelped and ripped her wrist from his grasp.

“Jack, what the fuck!” she asked as she pushed herself away from him. “Ruby’s sick. People need to be out of here before Sam gets home with her,” she tried to explain calmly, but her voice betrayed the venom. She was peripherally aware of Kara’s tense body being ready to pounce on him should he touch her again, but Lena kept her eyes focused in a glare at an incredulous and drunk Jack.

“And what? I have to stop partying because of some sick kid?” Jack slurred, matching Lena’s glare.

Something in her snapped at that. Ruby considered Jack an unofficial godfather. Almost a father figure. At least she did when he was sober and decent human being. She wasn’t sure what had changed in the past year (she suspected it had something to do with his asshole friends back home in Metropolis), but this was not who she began dating a year ago.

“Get out,” Lena responded, eerily calm, and Jack and Kara alike froze in shock. Jack recovered quickly, morphing his face with anger, and opening his mouth to respond, but Lena didn’t allow him. “Get out,” she repeated, raising her voice a little.

Becoming increasingly angry at her demand, Jack took a menacing step forward. “You stupid little bi-”

“She said leave,” Kara stepped in front Lena, looking as if she were planning twenty-seven different ways to dismantle his body in that moment.

Jack scoffed at this. “And what? Is her little gal pal going to protect her- ah!”

Quicker than Lena could almost watch, Kara had Jack arms pinned painfully to his back, and had kicked his knees out from under him, so he was cowering on the floor.

By this point, almost everyone left at the party was silent, watching the scene play out before them. Glancing up at them, Kara shook her head to knock some hair out of her face, and glared at them. “Party’s over. Leave,” she growled, and everyone didn’t need to be told twice by the girl who just effortlessly took out a man who looked like a linebacker.

Eventually, when there were only a few stragglers left (although Lena knew Jack’s friends were loitering outside their apartment waiting on him), Kara let Jack up, and with a grunt he stood up and indignantly faced Lena.

Before he could say anything, Lena stopped him. “Don’t,” she murmured with a reverent anger. “Just go.”

Taking once glance back at Kara who seemed ready to tackle him again at a moment’s notice, he scoffed, brushed off his shirt, and turned definitely, leaving the apartment.

As soon as he was out the door, Lena’s body slacked and she began heaving short breaths, knowing she would begin crying again momentarily. Kara was quick to comply to her needs and wrapped her back in her arms, rubbing her back with her hand, coaxing Lena through the sobs.

“I’m proud of you,” she whispered over and over, and Lena clung to her voice.

Several moments passed them in the silence of the abandoned apartment, before a young voice called out.

“Aunt Lena, why are you sad?”

Kara and Lena pulled away from each other, both unable to help the small smiles that spread on their face at seeing the little girl they both loved so fondly sleepily look upon them both with worry.

With a small laugh and wiping her tears, Lena crouched down to Ruby’s level and held out her arms. “I’m sad because I heard you were sick, munchkin,” she played off, as Ruby happily complied to her offer and ran over to hug Lena. “I missed you,” she added on, ruffling the little girl’s hair, to which Ruby giggled.

“You saw me this morning,” she pointed out tactfully, and Lena rolled her eyes.

“That doesn’t mean I can’t miss you,” Lena shot back, which caused Ruby to giggle a little more. Seeing her up close though, Lena definitely noticed how she was paler than usually, and had less life in her eyes than normal, and it wasn’t just because it was late at night.

Glancing up at Sam, she saw her worried furrowing her eyebrows as Kara intently relayed something to her. Lena’s heart gave a small pang as she realized Kara was filling her in on the events of the night. Meeting her gaze solemnly, Sam nodded slightly at what Kara was saying, and then transformed her face into a brighter expression as she addressed her daughter.

“Rubes, how about we go get you some medicine and get you all ready for bed? You need to rest so your body can fight off the sickness, okay?” Sam asked, but didn’t leave room for Ruby to give an actual opinion as she scooped her up. “We’ll talk after I get her in bed, okay?” she murmured close to Lena, and she nodded slightly.

When it was just the two of them again, there was a slight awkward beat between herself and Kara, like neither of them knew where to go from there. Eventually, Kara let out a sigh, and gently grabbed Lena’s wrist and led her to the couch. “You could use some rest too, Lee,” she stated quietly, and Lena didn’t have the energy to argue.

They settled into a semi-familiar position on the couch, with Lena snuggling into Kara’s body a little tighter than usual, still feeling the effects of the alcohol she consumed earlier. Unconsciously, she began counting Kara’s heartbeats, slowly her breaths to its rhythm, offhandedly wondering if Kara could hear her heart beating as well. She hoped she could.

And the exhaustion from the night soothed her to sleep faster than she expected it to.

Sam came down moments later to find Kara softly stroking Lena’s hair, watching her sleep as if the whole world revolved around her. Deciding their conversation could wait until morning, Sam quietly slipped back upstairs, unable to help the wide grin that spread across her face.

Chapter Text

Kara strutted angrily up to the interrogation room’s door, which was left open for the time being, causing all the people mulling about outside to scatter quickly. There were only two people in the room as she approached and unfortunately for her, Lena noticed her first.

She was in the middle of saying something to J’onn, her fingers fidgeting as they always did when she was nervous, when her eyes caught the blue ones in the doorway. As the eyes which used to be her favorite shade of green widened at the sight of her, Kara cringed, and pointedly turned to address J’onn.

He stood from the table slowly, and Kara knew what he was going to say before he said it.

“Kara, I don’t think you should be here-”

“I need to speak to her alone,” she demanded, allowing her voice to come out harshly. She was afraid if she didn’t speak with an edge, her resolve would crack.

Her eyes bore into J’onn’s and she knew he knew she wouldn’t let this go. He could read her mind to figure it out, but honestly, Kara almost figured he didn’t need to: her expression said as much.

Finally with a sigh, J’onn relented. Out of the corner of her eye, Kara pretended not to notice Lena stiffen at the prospect of leaving Kara alone with her, but Kara just crossed her arms in triumph and watched as J’onn headed towards the door.

“Five minutes, Kara,” he said before he walked out, giving her a pointed look that she easily interpreted as “do not touch my suspect”.

Kara scoffed. “I won’t need that long,” she responded, and he gave a short nod as he shut the door. She stayed turned with her back towards Lena for a few moments to collect herself, and she could tell by the sound of her racing heartbeat that Lena was nervous.

Finally, setting a stone cold and angry look on her face, Kara turned to face the girl awaiting judgement.

Lena’s eyes shot to hers the moment she moved, and they were wide and pleading. “Kara, please-” she started, but Kara knew she couldn’t let her finish.

So instead of doing so, her voice cut her off harshly, demanding, “I asked you never to see me again.” Her voice dipped during the statement, and almost wavered enough to betray the hurt voice in her head.

Lena flinched at her words, seemingly caught off guard by the statement. Finally clenching her jaw and unashamedly looking up at Kara with tears in her eyes, she responded defiantly, “I didn’t ask to be brought to you little super secret organization. They dragged me here in the middle of my-”

Kara slammed her hands on the table and allowed herself to loosen her resolve slightly, reciprocating the tears in her eyes. The sudden bang caused Lena to flinch, and Kara almost felt guilty for startling her. Except she didn’t because she was, well, her. Which was such a contradictory statement in itself.

“Why are you in National City?” Kara asked a little desperately, knowing, or at least highly suspecting there would only be one reason she would have picked up her life and moved here when she adored the city she grew up in.

At this, Lena ducked her eyes with guilt, and confirmed Kara’s suspicion. Her stomach churned at the realization that she was right, and so she silently pushed herself up from the table and turned to leave, having nothing further to say to the girl.

“I thought,” Lena began shakily, keeping her head downcast and refusing to meet Kara’s eyes. “I thought, I don’t know. That maybe after-”

“You thought wrong,” Kara cut her off again, but it was softer this time. More regretful. Lena’s eyes met Kara’s, and for the first time that day, Kara noticed her eyes had a natural sadness to them that she had never known before.

She swallowed thickly. That wasn’t her concern anymore. And if Lena wanted it to be her concern, she shouldn’t have done what she did.

Kara held her eyes for a few moments more, and then let out a shuddering breath. “I asked you never to see me again,” she repeated, but this time she allowed all her brokenness and sincerity to come through in the statement, and watched as it shattered a piece of Lena.

Before she could reply, Kara swiftly turned and left the room. As she suspected, J’onn was waiting outside solemnly. Their eyes met and Kara gave him a short nod.

“She’s all yours.”

Seven Years Ago

Things had been better with Kara since the incident, and honestly, Lena hadn’t known things could get better with her best friend.

But somehow, they were even more comfortable around each other than normal, and while Lena had a suspicion as to why, she was content not addressing it and enjoying the newfound comfort she now experienced with her friend.

The one thing she could not get away with not addressing, however, was the fact that she had officially broken up with Jack.

Lena glanced nervously over at Kara, who was laughing at something Sam had said. She allowed a small smile to tug at the corners at her mouth, as it naturally did every time she saw Kara smile. As it was the first Saturday in a while that they didn’t have to bother with a pre-game party or the rest of Jack’s crew, they decided to use it as a girls’ night out. Just go to a bar, sit and drink.

She had told Sam earlier that day that her and Jack were officially over, and she was ever grateful for the support she received from her friend. She just had no idea why she was having a such a hard time getting the words out to Kara. (A small part of her whispered that it was because once she told Kara everything was over between her and Jack, things would be different. And maybe she just wasn’t quite ready for that. She liked them right now, with Kara’s clear blue eyes glowing with laughter and jump starting her heart every time they met hers.)

“All right, I’m going to get us another round,” Sam announced, pulling Lena from her thoughts. As she got up, she shot Lena a meaningful look behind Kara’s back, and then turned to walk towards the bar.

Kara smiled at Lena, and took a swig of her drink that she had snuck in. Lena always found it amusing that soft, rule-following Kara always insisted on sneaking alcohol into bars that strictly forbade it because she “liked it better”.

Kara just had her weird quirks like that though, Lena had discovered over the course of becoming her best friend. She would think she had the girl figured out, and then suddenly she would move Ruby’s dresser that Lena and Sam combined couldn’t budge by herself, or she would get upset when Lena took one potsticker of three dozen to which Lena would respond to her pout with “It’s not like you were going to eat them all anyways”, and then watching in disbelief as she did.

But those little things that always caught Lena off guard were always such welcomed discoveries. She kept them in a safe spot in her mind, collecting them as she tried to piece together the amazing girl in front of her. Honestly, she could spend every day for the rest of her life trying to figure her out, and she wholeheartedly believed she could never truly learn everything. But god, did she want to try.

Setting her resolve, Lena clenched her jaw and gave Kara a strained smile in response. Taking a deep breath and averting her eyes, Lena sat her beer down on the table, and then began fidgeting her fingers.

“So I spoke with Jack today,” Lena began, and before she could get anything else out, Kara’s body practically became rigid as she interrupted her.

“You did?” she asked, and while Lena could tell she trying to use a supportive tone, it was coming off with a cool edge.

A lump formed in Lena’s throat as she fumbled for an answer. “I- Yeah, we met up at the coffee shop on eighth. We talked things over and decided-”

“Why?”

Lena was taken aback by the question, her eyebrows furrowing with concern as her eyes met Kara’s. She was tense, and was that- was that anger in her eyes? Lena could tell she was trying her best to subdue it, and yet Lena could always read her so well.

Whether it was out of genuine anger or just disappointment, Lena’s fists clenched with frustration. Kara had been the one encouraging her to break up with Jack. She had thought- god she had been so stupid to think that maybe when Lena was ready Kara wanted something with her. That part of the reason she hated Jack was because she cared for Lena.

And now here was Kara getting defensive as she told her she had finally broken up with him. Lena was thinking of something to say, when Sam returned with the drinks.

“Alright, I got us Busch because I’m cheap and I have a child to pay for- woah,” Sam cut off in the middle of her sentence when she finally looked up at the table and noticed the stand off between the two girls. “Is everything okay?” she finally asked, her eyes looking questioningly between the two girls who had yet to acknowledge her presence.

Kara broke her eye contact with Lena then to glance up at Sam, her eyes still hard. “Yeah, I um, forgot I have something in the morning,” she stated, not even trying to hide her coldness anymore, and before either girl could say anything, she was saying goodbye and quickly leaving the bar.

Sam and Lena looked after her in disbelief. Sam was the first to recover and turned back to Lena with concern.

“What did you say to her, Lee?” she asked worriedly.

Lena opened her mouth to say something, still reeling from the interaction and looking at the bar door Kara just left from. While she tried to say something, nothing came out, and she looked helplessly up at Sam. Before she could comprehend what was happening, a sob escaped from her body.

Reacting reflexively, Sam was at her side in an instant and escorting her out of the bar back home, as Lena clutched to her and cried the whole way. When they were finally wrapped up in blankets with Lena curled up on the couch, her head in Sam’s lap back in their apartment, Sam asked her again what she had said to Kara to upset her.

“I- I was telling her I met with Jack today to end things, and she j- just suddenly got so angry,” she recounted through her tears. Sam’s hands rubbed her soothingly to calm her down, but her face crunched in confusion.

“She got angry you broke up with Jack? Lena, are you sure-”

“You should have seen her face, Sam!” Lena cried out, following the statement with extra sobs. “I thought- I thought she- but now I feel so stupid.”

“Hey no, Lena, there’s no way that girl is mad you broke up with your shit boyfriend,” Sam insisted, trying to comfort her friend. Something just wasn’t adding up to her. Kara hated Jack.

“She is!” Lena insisted, sitting up to defiantly stare her down.

Sam huffed and shook her head. “Lena, that girl is so obviously head over heels for you, there’s absolutely no way she’s-”

“Sam, she’s obviously not if she storms out of the bar on me,” Lena pointed out desperately, and Sam was silenced at this. Because Kara obviously was upset about something, but what.

At this point, it was late and something she would have to address in the morning, since obviously Kara didn’t want to talk about it now. So instead of responding to that, Sam pulled Lena close and hugged her tightly.

After a few moments of silence, Sam whispered, “If it’s any consolation, I’m really proud of you for acknowledging your feelings for her.”

Lena stilled at that, but eventually she relaxed back into the hug and just mumbled, “Thanks.”

She had to beg Kara to spend the next Friday next in with her.

Lena wasn’t stupid; Kara had been avoiding her all week. And without the influences of alcohol heightening her emotions, she was forced to finally agree with Sam that it was highly unlikely Kara was upset she broke up with Jack. Not that a small part of her wasn’t worried that was still it. But she knew odds were Kara was upset with her about something else.

She just couldn’t figure out what it was.

Lena tried to track Kara down all week, but they were both pretty busy and that made it easy for Kara to always vaguely slip through her grasp with a weak excuse. Honestly, at this point Lena wasn’t upset as much as she was angry. If Kara was upset about something, why couldn’t she just come to Lena about it instead of avoiding her?

So when Friday finally came around, Lena had a plan that she knew Kara couldn’t avoid.

Lena: [Potstickers at my place? At 7?]

Lena held her breath as her phone notified her Kara had read the message, but the dots had yet to pop up to signify she was responding. After a couple minutes of waiting, Lena sighed and began typing again.

Lena: [Please? Just you and me and two dozen potstickers? I’ll even let you force one of those Disney movies on me.]

This time when she received the read receipt, the dots popped up immediately, and Lena held her breath as she waited for the response.

Kara: [Make it three dozen, and I don’t want to hear you complain once during The Great Mouse Detective.]

Lena didn’t even have to think before she responded.

Lena: [Done!]

Lena let out a sigh of relief as she felt like she was at least making some progress.

Sam had decided it was best to take Ruby out for the night, not wanting to interrupt or interfere with whatever Lena and Kara had to work through… that, and she couldn’t bear to see the two best friends in their current tense state. So with Sam and Ruby gone, the place cleaned, and the potstickers delivery on its way, Lena had no choice but to just sit and wait anxiously.

It felt like time crawled towards seven. Lena sat on the edge of the couch, nervously biting her lip and bouncing her leg up and down, staring distractedly at an empty room and listening to the soft rhythm of a rain shower that just started outside.

What if Lena had actually done something wrong to make Kara mad? Was she supposed to be apologizing? Or maybe Kara just had family stuff going on, and it would be rude for Lena to confront her? Or maybe Kara wasn’t mad at all and Lena was just reading too much into it, and was about to make an ass of herself?

She jumped at the sound of her front door opening and closing, and knew immediately it was Kara, who had taken a lot of convincing but was finally comfortable just walking in her and Sam’s house without being invited in. Lena let out a sigh and tried to center herself before she stood up to go and greet her best friend.

When she turned around, she was met by a guilt-ridden, wet Kara standing uselessly in her entry way. Lena took a little comfort in knowing that Kara clearly missed her as much as she had missed Kara in the past week just from her facial expression. But she was still frustrated that she was put into this situation.

And so Lena forced a strained smile on her face, and made her way around the couch to Kara to pull her into a rather awkward hug, to which Kara reluctantly returned. They pulled away from each other and when their eyes met, Kara made a small squeak noise.

Desperate to obtain at least a semblance of normality before she would have to inevitably confront the elephant in the room, Lena said softly, “The potstickers are on their way.”

Kara nodded at this dutifully, and fidgeted with her glasses. “I- uh- brought the movie,” she offered softly, and Lena nodded at this.

They settled into an uncomfortable silence until the potstickers came, in which they were able to settle in a slightly less uncomfortable silence that was now preoccupied by eating.

Realizing she could barely stomach the food while she was so worked up by the girl sitting next to her, Lena slammed her food down frustrated, and put her head in her hands. The action had clearly gotten Kara’s attention, but she didn’t comment on it, and rather ceased eating and waited agonizingly for Lena to start.

“What’d you have going on this week?” Lena finally stated patronizingly, lifting her head out of her hands just enough to shoot Kara a glare.

She could tell Kara was shaken, but she held a firm resolve as she shrugged. “Why do you care?”

“What did you just say?” Lena lashed incredulously out, the anger building up from the past week brimming from her expression. She shifted herself so her body was now aggressively facing Kara’s, and Kara’s eyes betrayed that she regretted what she said.

But instead of trying to fix it, she doubled down.

“I’m just saying I’m surprised you even noticed,” she repeated, swallowing thickly afterwards.

Lena was silent for a few beats, seething with anger, and the tension in the room was thick enough, she was surprised it didn’t suffocate them.

Finally, after several torturous minutes, Lena averted her eyes, and with a subdued anger, she said, “Well when you’re ready to communicate about your problems instead of go off by yourself and stew, then you can-“

“That’s not fair, Lena,” Kara interrupted seriously, and Lena’s face morphed into one of incredulousness.

“Excuse me?” she asked defensively. “It’s completely fair, you won’t even tell me what’s wrong-“

“If you don’t know what’s wrong than, you’ve never listened to me, so why should I try to start now!” Kara rebutted, her nose flaring as she huff, and tried to keep the tears out of her eyes.

“Kara, I have no idea what your-“

“Why’d you get back together with him?” Kara finally asked, cutting Lena off. She could no longer hold back her tears, and didn’t apparently seem too perturbed by Lena’s completely taken aback expression. “I care for you so much, and I want to be with you more than I’ve ever wanted to be with anyone—do you know how hard that was for me to open up to you when I thought you would never return the feelings?—and then you got back with some douche face that treats you like shit when I’m right here!”

Lena felt like the air had been sucked out of her lungs. Kara’s outburst had revealed a lot of information, and while she wanted to focus on the Kara likes her back part, she unfortunately had to deal with the former Kara thinks she’s still dating Jack part.

After a beat of silence, Lena expressionless asked, “You think I’m still dating Jack?”

Kara’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion at this. “You told me you got back together with him,” she responded.

“When did I do that?” she asked almost offended.

By now Kara had pretty much realized her mistake. “At the bar! You told me you saw Jack that morning! That you went out for coffee with him, like you always did when you were dating!”

And suddenly, it hit Lena how Kara had misinterpreted the whole situation. Gritting her teeth, however, she was still perturbed. “You didn’t let me finish. I was going to tell you I met up with him to end things officially. You walked out before I had the chance,” she explained with an edge to her voice. While she was relieved the whole thing was just miscommunication, she was still angry she had went through agony this past week because Kara assumed the worst about her.

Kara looked stunned at this news, and seemed to fully comprehend now how monumentally she had fucked up. “Oh. I- I didn’t- Lee-“

Lena held up her hand as the lump in the back of her throat grew, and she averted her eye contact. “I think it’s best if we just cool off and call it a night. Maybe talk about it again tomorrow,” Lena suggested without leaving room for Kara to answer. When Kara didn’t say anything, but remained on the couch unsure of what to do, Lena decided to explicitly state what she needed. “You should go, Kara.”

Kara stared at her, clenching her jaw, unable to speak without letting go of her resolve. With a firm nod, she swiftly stood from the couch and made her way to the door.

When she heard the front door shut, Lena crashed into sobs. How could Kara think she would ever get back together with that monster? And why did she leave that night at the bar without even letting Lena explain?

Her traitorous mind, however, kept going back to one specific fact though: Kara cared for and wanted to be with her. She had been right. There had been something, so incredibly special there, and now it was all complicated again, and Lena hadn’t even made clear to her that she felt the same back.

That was the thought that sparked her into action. She quickly jumped up from the couch and sprinted towards the front door, slamming it open and hoping she wasn’t too late.

“Kara!” she screamed, immediately becoming drenched as she ran out into the downpour, the rain mixing with the tears already staining her face.

Lucky for her, Kara was dejectedly making her way down the very end of her sidewalk up to her house when Lena exited and turned promptly. Seeing her running towards her, Kara quickly ran to meet her in the middle and caught her in a tight hug, sobbing into Lena’s shoulder.

“Lee, I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry. I thought the party was the official end of things, and so I was caught offguard when you said you saw him, and I ran before I could hear you say you were back with him, because it would have destroyed me, and I avoided you all week because I couldn’t stand to see you with-“

She was abruptly cut off by Lena’s lips pressing fiercely into hers, which only took her a split second to respond forcefully to. Her arms wrapped tightly around Lena’s waist and pulled her body flush up against her, so even the rain couldn’t get between them. Lena’s fingers gripped tightly into Kara’s scalp as they both melted into their long overdue kiss.

When they broke apart, Lena was the first to speak. “I really care about you too,” she whispered. And the rain beating on them should have drowned out the words, but somehow she knew Kara had heard them anyways.

Kara, unable to speak after the kiss she had been dreaming of for months occurred, just shook her head a little in disbelief, and began kissing Lena again, to which Lena had no objections.

“Ew!” a tiny voice squealed out behind them, and they both broke apart to find Sam stand apologetically behind them with Ruby under an umbrella.

“Okay, Rubes, let’s give them some privacy,” Sam said, mouthing “sorry” to her two friends, and trying to herd her daughter into the house.

Lena and Kara laughed as they heard Ruby loudly proclaim, “But Mommy, they were kissing, and that’s gross!”

When they both finally returned into the house to dry off, actually talk, and watch their movie, they both had a text from Sam.

Sam: [IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME]

Chapter Text

“Hey.”

Kara bristled a bit at the sound of her sister cautiously approaching her from the side. Alex was the only one brave enough to, not that she blamed everyone else for not wanting to be near her at the moment. Staring rigidly with her arms crossed looking as if she were about burn down the whole building didn’t exactly invite people into her presence.

Sighing when she realized Kara wasn’t going to respond, Alex turned to look at Kara’s view with her. J’onn had just reentered the room and was setting up the recording equipment before he began in on the interrogation. Biting her cheek, Alex knew she owed it to Kara to keep trying.

“I’m sure what happened back then had nothing to do with the Luthors,” she offered sincerely, her head turning ever so slightly towards Kara so she could gauge her reaction from the corner of her eye.

Kara remained stone quiet for a moment, but then took a sharp inhale. Alex’s body tensed in anticipation for what her sister would open her end of the conversation with.

“How did I not see she was one of them?”

Alex let out a soft sigh, and turned towards Kara fully this time. Anyone else would have missed the waver in her strong façade, but Alex knew her sister too well. There were tears welling in her eyes and as much as she was trying to pull off anger as her predominant emotion, Alex knew she was actually just hurt, and she knew she was partially responsible.

Swallowing thickly and pulling back a strand of Kara’s hair softly, Alex murmured, “Kara, she’s not one of them.”

It was a confession Kara missed in the moment.

“But she told everyone, Alex!” she burst, slamming her hands down and turning to her sister in exasperation, struggling desperately to hold on to her anger, but the tears would slip any moment and they both knew it. “Why would she tell everyone?” she asked more subdued this time, her voice dimming into a quiet submission of confusion and disappointment she had been holding on to for years.

Alex sucked in a sharp breath. She needed to just come clean. Come clean now before-

“Miss Michaels, do you personally know this man?”

Kara’s attention was immediately pulled from Alex and back to the interrogation room where J’onn was beginning. She resumed her stone face, trying not to give away too many emotions, but Alex just stared at her, mouth open. Almost there.

But instead of saying anything, she pulled her attention too to Lena, who was being shown a picture of Lex Luthor. Letting out a slow breath, she knew all Lena had to do was deny it, and then they would know. Or at least J’onn would know, with the whole mindreading and everything.

They just had to prove she wasn’t involved with Lex, as silly as that sounded. Alex didn’t believe she was. The others were more convinced she was, but given Alex’s past with Lena and especially now knowing that her and Kara were… involved, as far as she was concerned, interrogating Lena was just covering their bases. Once a direct connection was knocked out, they would just have to check any distant connections.

They just had to prove she didn’t know Lex.

But when the picture of Lex Luthor was brought before Lena, her eyebrows raised a little and her eyes flicked back up to J’onn.

“Yes,” she replied hoarsely.

Alex’s eyes widened as Kara crumpled beside her.

Six Years Ago

Bliss.

Probably the only word Lena could use to describe her life at the current moment. Or at least the only word that could come close to describing waking up wrapped tightly in Kara’s arms. Or spending her lazy days studying with her head in Kara’s lap as she sketched. Or making dinner with Kara dancing around the kitchen and stealing a bountiful amount of kisses.

It was just simple bliss.

Lena’s phone rang beside her as she drifted off trying to study. Her eyes lit up when she saw the name of the culprit of her daydreaming pop up on her phone.

“Hey!” she greeted brightly, setting her pencil down, and standing so as to sit on her desk to talk to Kara.

“Hey!” Kara returned, with even more enthusiasm than usual, if that was even possible. “I have a surprise for you can you open your window?”

Lena frowned at this, and padded over to her window. “You not about to serenade me from the ground, are you?” she asked suspiciously, as she threw her window open, but she jumped back when she saw Kara just sitting on a tree branch outside her second story window with a basket with a big dopey grin on her face.

“Nope!” she answered proudly as Lena stood agape. Her smile turned smug as Lena was at a loss for words.

“What in the world are you doing?” Lena finally asked when she got her bearings. She looked down the tree, and then back at Kara with a mixture of horror, shock and amusement. “Kara how did you even climb that tree, there’s hardly any branches at the bottom! And with a basket no less! You’re going to get yourself killed! And then I’m going to kill you!”

Kara chuckled at her outburst good naturedly, and Lena tried to fiend annoyance, but her girlfriend’s laugh was too infectious and she ended up just painted a strained grimace on her face.

“Come on, are you going to yell at me, or let me in to give you your surprise?” Kara finally asked, and Lena huffed as she held out her hand to grab Kara’s basket from her, and Kara quickly shifted herself down the branch to pull herself into Lena’s room.

Kara’s face was flushed and Lena’s look of disapproval made her a bit sheepish.

“It would not have been a great surprise to find my girlfriend dead outside my window,” Lena admonished, but Kara just kept her good natured smirk.

With a puppy dog pout she knew Lena would be powerless against, Kara whined, “Leeeee, I had it all under control.”

Lena’s walls were weakening just with that one look, but she was not letting her win that easily. “Seriously Kara, you have a key to this house. Why are you climbing my tree?”

“Well it seemed like a super romantic gesture in this movie I saw one time,” she replied, never faltering in her enthusiasm.

Lena dropped her head in her hands. “You did this all because of High School Musical?” she asked accusingly, her amusement seeping in her voice despite her best efforts.

“You got the reference!” Kara jumped up excitedly and Lena hated that she could keep the smile off her face, even if she did roll her eyes.

“That’s not the point, Kara; the point is, please don’t put yourself in danger for me,” she protested, and Kara became sober quickly, and with a soft smile padded over to Lena.

Gently connecting their foreheads, Kara brushed back a piece of Lena’s hair and then took her hands and looked her in the eye. “I promise you, Lena Michaels, that I never was and never will put myself in danger.”

Sighing and relenting a bit, Lena softened at her touch. “Okay, good,” she whispered, and kissed her girlfriend with a small smile. “That’s all I wanted.”

Kara’s eyes lit up at this. “So I can show you the surprise now?” she asked, basically bouncing from excitement. Months of dating and Lena still had no idea where Kara got all her energy from. Well, besides the massive amount of food she ate.

Giving her a rueful smile, Lena nodded. “Yes, you can show me the surprise now.”

Turning abruptly away from her, Kara eagerly handed Lena the basket, who opened it gingerly with a wary look on her face. Her eyebrows raised when she saw the contents.

“It’s a picnic,” she observed. “Very out of the box for the contents of a picnic basket, dear,” she teased lightly, and Kara blushed slightly.

“Well yeah, but you have a midterm on Monday,” Kara explained as if that should clear up everything. Lena’s eyebrows quirked at this instead. Sighing dramatically, Kara continued, “Which means, you’ve completely given up you eating pattern for studying, so this is me forcing you to eat. And before you protest, I’m only making you eat on your own terms, at your own pace because I know how you get when I interrupt your studying for too long, but I’m going to sit here on your bed quietly working on my journalism report, and all I ask is you eat at least one thing from this basket every hour. And if you want, I can run through flashcards with you, or you can teach me what your learning—not that I’ll understand it at all—but I know that’s one of the best ways to study, so yeah. Your surprise is a fully prepared study date that will take as much pressure off you as possible.”

When she finished, Kara bashfully averted her eye contact and rubbed the back of her neck with her hand, not meaning to ramble quite as much as she did.

Lena just stared open mouthed at her. It definitely wasn’t one of the grandest gestured Kara had made to her over the past months, but she was finding it was the little things Kara did that just did Lena in. Just the little thought of making sure she ate and she had a proper way of studying on her own terms.

Opening her mouth, Lena’s thank you was on the tip of her tongue. Instead, however, she blurted, “I love you.”

The words startled both of them, and Kara physically jumped and stumbled backwards at the words, her eyes going wide and meeting Lena’s surprisingly wide and calm ones.

She hadn’t meant to say it, but it just slipped out. But perhaps that was just the universe telling her she needed to say it. They had been bouncing around the word for awhile, not wanting to rush into things too much. But more and more Lena caught herself almost mentioning it offhand when they were joking around, or when they were on the phone, or when they were saying goodnight.

Lena had been saying it silently for awhile now. It felt good to say it out loud for once.

Kara, however, had to take a moment to get her bearings, Lena observed. She was completely flushed and at a loss, and finally she straightened her glasses, and let out a nervous laugh.

“Well, that’s relieving, because I’ve been in love with you for a really long time,” she finally admitted quietly, meeting Lena’s eyes and offering a shy smile.

This caught Lena off guard.

“Y-you have?” Lena asked, shaking a little. How long had she missed that?

Kara’s bashfulness increased with Lena’s question. “Um, yes? I- I think I’ve been in love with you since we became good friends, and I was too scared to admit it first because I didn’t want to rush you, because I know this is all new to you and everything, and-“

This time Lena didn’t let her finish her ramblings. Instead she quickly cut her off with a heated kiss and pushing her back onto her bed.

It happened on accident the first few times.

Kara would catch something Lena would throw at her with her back turned, or something that had fell off the counter
And Lena happened to be a very clumsy person, but she was beginning to notice that around Kara, her clumsiness was beginning to have less consequences.

Like when she dropped a pan, Kara was right there to catch it. When she stumbled, Kara was already by her side to steady her. Even when she was just jokingly trying to throw something in the trash across the room, when Kara was around, it would always curve in.

It wasn’t just the lack of clumsiness though, it was the other things adding up as well: the appetite, the moving of extremely heavy furniture, the sometimes off vocabulary, the climbing of her tree, the speed she could get ready, the way she could hear things Lena swore she whispered across the room. Everything honestly.

It didn’t take Lena very far into their relationship to put together that Kara was an alien.

She had no clue which species and honestly she didn’t care either. She figured Kara knew she knew, with how obvious she was being about it all. And Lena let it go, allowing Kara the time and space to come to her and address it whenever she felt ready. The world wasn’t a terribly accepting place of her kind at the moment, so if Kara wanted them both to avoid the topic, then that’s what Lena would do for her.

She noticed sometimes when talks of alien citizenship and the persecution of aliens came onto the TV or into conversation, Kara would stiffen uncomfortably and force a smile on her face. Lena always took this as a sign that she wasn’t ready, and would either change the channel or the subject, often muttering about why people couldn’t just let it go.

Anyone deserved a place on this Earth in Lena’s eyes. Especially people as perfect as Kara. Hell, Earth was better off with Kara.

So as far as she was concerned, they would continue to pretend and avoid until Kara became comfortable enough. Until then however, she hoped Lena’s quiet mutterings were enough of a comfort.

“So, um, I was thinking,” Kara opened on their walk to class. It was gearing towards the end of their school year, and Kara and Lena had taken that as the excuse they needed to spend every waking moment together.

Lena turned to her with eyebrows raised. “You were thinking?” she prompted.

“My family’s coming to visit next week and I was wondering if you wanted to meet them?” she blurted out quickly, her body tensing.

Lena’s eyes widened in surprise as her heart rate quickened a little. “You want me to meet your family?” she asked, trying to keep a minimal amount of panic in her question. Sure things were obviously going great between her and Kara, and she knew this was the next logical step in her relationship, but it was… surreal. This whole time it kind of felt like they had been living in this bubble of reality, where it was just them and their friends, and Lena almost forgotten about life outside of school.

She had to meet Kara’s family. She hadn’t even come out to her own mother yet.

“Um, yeah, if you want to, I’d really like you to. I-it’ll only be my mom and my sister, because, you know, that’s really the only family I have,” she responded shyly, her eyes glancing up at Lena’s, and Lena forced a smile and swallowed thickly.

“I would love to meet your family, Kara,” she responded finally, and Kara’s eyes lit up.

“Really?” she asked, and Lena laughed, as she bumped shoulders with Kara playfully.

With a soft smile, she nodded to confirm again. “Yes, really,” she promised, and it was almost true. If she weren’t so intimidated at the prospect of meeting the people who raised such a perfect being, she might have actually meant it too.

The next week flew by and the night before Kara’s family was set to arrive, the girls were cuddling watching a movie on Kara’s couch. Lena sighed lazily and absentmindedly asked Kara a question.

“You excited to see your family tomorrow?”

She felt Kara physically tense under her, and Lena furrowed her eyebrows and sat up in confusion.

“What’s the matter, I thought you were always excited to see your family?” she asked, concerned.

Kara sat up and immediately stood from the couch and walked to the kitchen. “Yeah I guess, I just- I don’t know,” she responded lamely, and Lena was at a loss.

“You don’t know?” she asked incredulously. “Kara, are you sick? It’s your family. You never shut up about them.” Kara remained silent in the kitchen, and Lena became even more worried. “Do you not want me to meet them?”

Kara’s head shot up at that. “No, of course I want you to meet them, I just- I don’t know, okay!” She threw her hands up frustrated and Lena sat back, an expression of shock on her face.

“No,” she finally said. “No, not okay.”

Kara looked guiltily down at her feet and sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I- I didn’t mean to make it seem like I was angry or frustrated with you, because I’m not.”

Lena sat silently for a moment before she spoke. “You haven’t told them you’re gay, have you,” Lena finally stated carefully, believing she found the root of the problem.

Kara gave a little laugh at this. “No, I haven’t,” she responded softly.

Melting into a empathetic frown, Lena sighed. “Kara, you-“

“I- That’s not what I’m worked up about though,” Kara cut her off, not looking her in the eyes. Lena’s eyebrows shot up at this. “My family should- will take it fine. They’ll just be happy I’m happy.”

Lena pursed her lips and considered this for a moment. “Then what are you worked up about?” she asked, and Kara just fidgeted and stared at the floor, so Lena began making guesses. “You’re worried they won’t like me? Or I won’t like them? You worried I’ll take one look at your amazing mom and sister and cut my losses and run? What is-“

Her words were cut off as Kara stiffened at her last guess, and Lena was speechless.

“You think I’m going to break up with you?” Lena asked, her palms becoming sweaty because how could Kara ever think that. Lena was on her feet now, making her way towards Kara, possibly to shake her out of whatever delusions she was in.

When she stood in front of Kara expectantly, Kara had no choice but to give in. “I don’t think you going to break up with me because of my family Lee, but…” She trailed off, still refusing to look at Lena.

“But what,” Lena demanded. Kara’s days of bottling up her emotions and not coming clean to Lena were over. It almost destroyed them once, and Lena was determined not to let it happen again.

Kara sighed frustratingly and roughly ran her hand through her hair. “But meeting my family is a big step, and I can’t take it with you if I haven’t been being honest with you,” she tried to explain.

“You’ve lost me,” Lena responded, completely unsure of what Kara was getting at.

Huffing, Kara tried again. “I know I need to come out to my family, but I also need to come out to you, and I don’t know if you- I don’t know,” she cried desperately, and turned sharply deeper in the kitchen to find some alcohol.

“Is this some kind of joke?” Lena asked her baffled. “You need to come out to me? I think I know you’re gay, love,” she scoffed and tried to laugh a little to lighten the mood, but Kara remained somber.

“I- This is a different kind of coming out,” Kara explained quietly, and Lena furrowed her eyebrows perplexed. “I’m an alien, Lena.”

Lena stared at her. Stared at the girl she thought she knew so well, but apparently didn’t. And apparently Kara didn’t know her either. She felt like she had been punched the gut.

Kara thought Lena would break up with her because she was an alien?

Body beginning to shake, and breathing unevenly, Lena remained silent for a long while as Kara finally looked at her for the first time the entire conversation with tears in her eyes. And as much as Lena wanted to go to Kara and comfort her and tell her of course she wasn’t going to break up with her because she was an alien, a bigger, larger part of her was hurt. Incredibly hurt.

She had been with Kara for months. She’d thought they’d moved past the inherent distrust. She’d thought they’d moved past the Kara thinking the worst of Lena. Back then, Kara thought she had gotten back together with Jack, and now… now she thought Lena was going to leave over something Kara did very little to hide?

It was hard to stop the tears, and it was a losing battle. Wiping away the streams on her face, Lena looked Kara in the eyes and finally responded.

“You are unbelievable, Kara Danvers,” she said, meaning to put some spite in it, but all it came out as was pain. She could physically see a part of Kara crack under her words, which hurt her, but she knew she needed to cool off before she made anything worse. She had to remove herself from the situation before she escalated it.

“Lee,” Kara started, the pain clear in her voice as well.

“I- I think I need some space tonight. I- I’ll call you in the morning, okay?” Lena choked.

And before Kara could respond, Lena was running out of the house.

Chapter Text

Kara felt as if her world had stopped when she heard that singular word come from Lena’s mouth. She knew Lex. She was a part of this, just like back then.

Kara wanted to throw up.

“Though I’m not sure how personally you mean,” Lena continued with her statement, unperturbed. “That’s Lex Luthor,” she stated simply. “My ex-boyfriend’s best friend from back home. He’s why I’m here right? I dated his best friend in college when some suspicious anti-alien activity took place on campus, and so you have to look into me as a formality because now he’s gone insane?” Lena’s voice was hesitant as she guessed, but the hope was there too. She desperately wanted her reasoning to be the case.

But all she was met with was a thick silence, as everyone, including the observers outside held their breath.

She took in J’onn’s concentrated expression for a moment, before the tension was too much for her.

“That’s why I’m here, right?” she demanded, needing to be validated. But again, she was met with silence. “Why am I-“

“Did you ever meet Lex Luthor in person?” J’onn asked, ignoring her question, and Lena bristled at this, clearly annoyed.

“No,” she responded definitely. “Talked with him and some of Jack’s other friends on video chats sometimes, but that was the extent. Jack and I didn’t have the… healthiest relationship. There was no heartwarming meet-and-greets with his friends back home. I’m sorry, why am I here-“

“This is more than a formality, Miss Michaels,” J’onn cut in, to prevent her from asking her question again, and Lena stiffened at this. “You specifically targeted and endangered an alien peer of yours.”

Lena stared incredulously at J’onn for a long moment as Kara’s entire body stiffened. She would finally get to see what Lena had to say for herself.

“You think I would hurt Kara, because, what, some asshole told me too?” Lena seethed. “I didn’t have anything to do with that post; you already proved that six years ago.”

Everything around Kara stopped.

“Alex,” her voice came out raspy, and Alex shifted uncomfortably to her side.

J’onn tried to continue without acknowledging her. “What did Jack tell you about-“

“Why am I here!” Lena cried out, slamming her fists on the table and glaring at J’onn, and the interrogation room was at a standstill.

Kara, however, found her interest elsewhere. “Alex,” she whispered lowly again. “What does she mean they proved she didn’t make the post?”

She stared at her sister expectantly, and Alex shied away from her gaze guiltily. Feeling like she was punched in the gut, Kara took a shaky step away from her sister.

Alex desperately tried to make amends. “Kara, please, I thought she was bullying you. You didn’t tell me otherwise, and I- I thought I was protecting you. She hurt you Kara, and you asked me to not-“

“How could you not tell me she didn’t do it?” Kara asked accusingly, tears once again threatening to spill over, as she looked over at Alex betrayed. Alex opened her mouth to respond, but J’onn cut her off with his carefully worded response to Lena.

“You’re here because we have reason to believe you’ve been in contact with your brother,” he explained delicately, and Lena’s eyebrows furrowed.

“I don’t have a brother,” she said slowly. “I’m an only child; you must have the wrong person.”

J’onn remained silent for a moment before he decided to break the news. “You’re an illegitimate child,” he disclosed, and Lena recoiled at his words. “Of Lionel Luthor.”

Six Years Ago

The moment Lena had stepped out of Kara’s house, she was hit with the overwhelming realization that the only person she wanted to go to in that moment was Kara.

Instead, however, her anger and pride won out. Wiping a tear from her face and sniffing loudly, she shoved her hands in her sweatshirt pockets and stalked away from Kara’s and down the path to her own home.

Her mind was an incessant whirlwind of thoughts that she was trying to shut out, but they all lead back to the idea that Kara still didn’t trust her. And it hurt. It hurt so much she could barely breathe or hold back the sobs. Jack never trusted her either, and she had blamed it on the fact that he was just a shitty person, but now she was with Kara and it was still happening, and who was the common denominator here?

Lena slammed open her rickety house’s door and took some large shuddering breaths between sobs. Digging her hands into her scalp, she wished for nothing more than to make the thoughts go silent before she spiraled any more.

Kara loves me. Kara loves me. Kara loves me.

She chanted the words in her mind, willing for it to be all that she heard, and yet the look on Kara’s face, when she was scared to tell Lena just-

Lena haphazardly found her way to the kitchen, yanked out the first whiskey she could find, and called out. “Sam! Sam, are you home!” she yelled, vaguely chiding herself for screaming past Ruby’s bedtime. But the house remained silent, and Lena took another swig and cursed.

The retreat. Sam took Ruby to retreat for college single mothers this weekend. She wouldn’t be home until Sunday.

So Lena did what she could. Took another large drink of the whiskey, walked to the living room, and pulled out her phone, hoping Sam would be able to get away to answer.

She pulled up Sam’s contact and dialed her number, muttering under her breath and shaking her leg as she waited. Sam’s voice popped up over the speaker eventually, but it was only to tell Lena she had reached her voicemail. Lena sighed annoyed as she waited for the beep.

“Hey, Sam. Something happened with Kara and I tonight and-” her voice cracked off as she couldn’t hold her emotions back from how she was feeling at that particular moment. “She told me she was-” she cut off again with a shuddering breath as she replayed the scene in her head. The scene where Lena left her scared and vulnerable girlfriend. She let out a strained sob and continued. “I think I did something bad, Sam. Please call me ba-”

The call was cut off abruptly and Lena pulled her phone away from her ear. When she looked at it, she let out an exasperated groan. It had been on 5% at Kara’s and she never got around to asking for a charger. Now it was dead.

Throwing it haphazardly to the side, she drank several more shots of the whiskey in one go. She curled up on her side and began to cry, realizing how misconstrued her actions must have seemed to Kara, which caused her to cry even more.

She would go over to Kara’s in the morning to sort it all out, she resolved, trying to calm herself down. She evened out her breathing and curled more into herself. And in the following minutes, she fell asleep.

Lena woke up with a pounding in her head. Blearily blinking her eyes awake, she squinted as she looked around the bright living room, groaning as she sat up. Her eyes landed on the mostly empty whiskey bottle (much more empty than she anticipated) and the events of the previous night came rushing back to her, hitting her hard.

She grimaced, rubbing her eyes and stumbling off the couch. She grabbed the whiskey and her phone where it was still lying on the ground and padded her way into the kitchen, slowly plugging her phone into its charger.

With a yawn, she turned and returned the whiskey back to the cupboard, and grabbed a glass to pour herself a much needed glass of water. She had taken her first gulp when she heard her phone begin buzzing incessantly. Furrowing her eyebrows, she walked over to her phone and sighed. Several notifications from Sam were coming in, too fast for her to read all of them. She did managed to read one of them though.

Sam: [WHAT DID YOU DO]

Sighing Lena unlocked her phone, and clicked into her messages app, noticing several messages from some of her other friends. She gritted her teeth in annoyance that Sam clearly had reached out to her other friends to check on her, but she let out a shaky breath and resolved to deal with Sam and the others later. Her first priority was Kara.

Lena frowned in dismay at the clear lack of reaching out Kara had done since the night before as she clicked into their conversation. She would’ve thought Kara would’ve at least sent something, but shaking her head slightly, Lena reprimanded herself. She was the one who walked out on Kara after all.

Lena: [I’ve got a clearer head now, and I’m ready to talk.]

She paused for a moment, reading it over, and then nodded firmly and hit send, letting out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. She stared at the message for a moment, and then shut off her phone, and sat down her phone, returning to her glass of water.

A few minutes passed and Lena heard her phone buzz. She raced over to the counter and looked at the notification. She huffed in annoyance at the message she found.

Sam: [I’m fucking serious Lena. Fucking answer me.]

Lena slammed her phone down on the counter and started pacing the kitchen, not wanting to deal with her friend quite yet.

When fifteen minutes had passed, Lena knew something was off. Kara was the quickest person to text back ever. There was no way she hadn’t seen her text by now.

Begrudgingly, Lena returned to her phone and unlocked it, staring at her unanswered text.

Finally she sent another message.

Lena: [Kara?]

Another six minutes passed and Lena became even more fidgety. Her stomach was churning, but she reasoned with herself that Kara was still just a little wary after last night. She picked up her phone again.

Lena: [I’m really ready to talk. I swear.]

She bit her lip anxiously as she hit send, praying to literally any godlike figure who was happening to listen that her girlfriend would respond. But after a few minutes of the continued silence, the panic really began to sink in.

Lena: [Kara please.]

Lena: [I swear it’s not what you think, we just need to talk.]

She was holding her breath on the verge of a full breakdown when her phone buzzed and she let out a sob of relief as Kara’s name with a little heart emoji popped up in her notifications. But when she opened the message, her heart stopped.

Kara: [I think you made yourself pretty clear.]

Lena began crying at this, understanding the full hurtful extent of her hasty actions the previous night, but desperate for any second chance Kara would be willing to give her.

Lena: [I was just angry last night and needed to clear my head. My head’s clear. Let’s talk, please.]

Her heart was racing as she stared at the conversation for several minutes, and eventually realized Kara wasn’t planning on responding any time soon. Huffing, she angrily typed.

Lena: [Kara Danvers do not make me do this over text.]

There was a buzz in response and Lena was brought to a complete standstill.

Kara: [I’m blocking your number. Don’t ever try to contact or see me again.]

Lena’s breathing shortened to rapid breaths as she tried to comprehend the message. There was no way Kara would throw away everything they had for a simple miscommunication without even discussing it, was there?

And yet, there was the text to prove it.

Lena: [What?]

Lena: [This is a joke right?]

Lena: [Kara?]

She was full on crying at this point, trying to keep any sanity she had still in check. In split second decision, Lena yanked her phone from the cord in the wall and ran out the door. She could block her phone number, but Lena still knew where she lived. She would get to explain herself whether Kara liked it or not.

She was out the door when Sam pulled into the driveway.

Lena faltered for a moment, because Sam wasn’t supposed to be home until the following evening, and the look on her face was enough to kill on sight. Sam opened her door and slammed it shut, causing Ruby to start crying in the back seat.

“What the fuck, Michaels,” Sam began, storming towards Lena, and Lena shrank at the use of her last name. “What the actual fuck were you thinking last night?”

Lena’s breath shallowed as she was once again reminded how horrible of a person she was. She shook her head and softly protested, “I didn’t mean to-”

“Fucking destroy the kindest, sweetest, most genuine person on this planet?” Sam filled in for her, and Lena recoiled.

“I was just- god, Sam I was just hurt and I wasn’t thinking,” Lena tried to justify, but Sam wasn’t having it.

“That is not an excuse Lena and you know it. God, I don’t even fucking know you, because my best friend would never do something as mean-spirited and cruel as you did.”

The tears were streaming down her face, as Lena tried to reason with her. “Sam, I don’t know what came over me, I just had to get out of there and clear my head, and I wanted to go back in as soon as I left, but my pride just forced me to go home, and I didn’t know what to do, so I just stayed there.”

“Lena,” Sam’s voice cut in harshly. “You think I care that you walked out? You think that justifies what you did?”

Lena paused and furrowed her eyebrows. “I don’t understand-”

“Are you telling me the only thing you think you did wrong last night was walk out on Kara?”

The beat of silence that passed as Lena tried to figure out Sam’s angle was thick with tension. Eventually however, Lena swallowed thickly and nodded, confusion in her eyes.

Sam’s glare intensified. “Are you fucking- Seriously Lena? No fucking remorse at all over the post?”

Lena’s confusion intensified. “The post?” she questioned

“God, Lena-”

“What post?” Lena cut off, clearly still confused.

“Don’t ‘what post’ me, Michaels. The post you made-”

“Sam I didn’t make any posts,” Lena protested.

“Jesus Lena how drunk did you get to forget that you posted-”

“Sam I didn’t make any posts,” Lena repeated firmly this time, her resolve shaking only slightly, and Sam stopped, a little taken aback. “My phone died when I called you. I fell asleep right after. I didn’t make any posts.”

Sam’s face suddenly turned ashen white as her eyes widened and she took Lena’s sincerity and confusion in for the first time. “Oh shit, Lena. You don’t know about it, do you.”

“Know about what? Sam, what post? What are you talking about?”

“Check your Twitter,” Sam responded softly, tears in her eyes, and Lena shakily opened up her phone to her Twitter page.

It was the first post there, and Lena felt like she could throw up. It already had hundreds of likes.

@LeeMikey: [The people saying we deserve to know who we’re with are right. We deserve to know who among us aren’t from us or our planet. We deserve to know the outsiders, the aliens who try to infiltrate our lives. So @Kardanvrs, when were you planning on telling everyone?]

The post was deleted as quickly as Lena could with shaky hands. She looked up at Sam panicked.

“I didn’t write that post. I didn’t, god I would never do that to Kara. Oh my god, she thinks I wrote that post. Sam,” Lena became increasingly panicked as her words continued, and before Sam could respond, Lena was dialing Kara’s number and sprinting as fast as she could to Kara’s house.

The number didn’t even ring; an automated voice instead told her the number had been disconnected, and Lena fought against sobbing as she was running.

She reached Kara’s house and banged mercilessly on the door, screaming for Kara to let her in. That it was a mistake. That she would never her Kara like that.

But she was met with silence.

Desperate and not willing to give up yet, Lena ran down the steps and lifted up the rock in the front yard to find the spare key. She struggled to hold her hands steady enough, but eventually fit it into the keyhole and turned it to unlock the door.

She swung the door wide open and sunk to the ground in sobs.

The entire place had been cleared out.

Kara was gone.

Lena wasn’t sure how long she sat there curled up on Kara’s porch sobbing. At one point, Sam arrived with Ruby and just sat silently beside her.

She was unsurprised when a man approached her and told her in a hard voice she was being brought in for questioning concerning information she had leaked on a fellow classmate. Sam had tried to protest for her, but Lena waved her off and sullenly agreed to go with the man.

Maybe if she could convince him she had nothing to do with the post, he would give word to Kara.

Maybe this was her way back to the love of her life.

Chapter Text

“I’m… no. No! I’m not Lex Luthor’s sister,” Lena scoffed from inside the interrogation room. But Kara didn’t need to be a mind reader to recognize the fear in her eyes. “My father died before I was born,” she recounted confidently, but there was a slight waver to her voice.

Kara let out a shuddering breath as her eyes studied the girl in a new light for the first time in years. Her demeanor gave off a cold presence to anyone around her, but her mind was in a constant confusing loop of trying to figure out what she thought she already knew.

Had her gut been right all those years ago? Was the post a poorly timed mistake? Should she have fought against the DEO more to try to talk to her that day?

Has Lena been waiting for her to reach out after all these years?

A wave of nausea hit her as her attention was pulled towards the interrogation.

“Were you ever in contact with the Luthor family?” J’onn continued, ignoring Lena’s outburst.

The question seemed to offend Lena as she spat out, “No.”

“Really?” J’onn questioned, causing her to flare in anger. “No bumps on the street? No random phone calls? Nothing?”

“No,” Lena repeated, gritting the word out of her teeth with an intense glare.

J’onn paused to consider this. “Your mother, she’s a single mother, correct? How did she pay for your schooling?”

If Lena wasn’t outright angry before, she was now that J’onn had brought her mother into it. “Listen we got by,” Lena started, a sharp edge to her voice. “My mother worked her ass off; I got scholarships, and-” Her voice faltered, and a quick flash of panic crossed her face.

J’onn raised his eyebrows at this and prompted her forward. “And?”

Her body remained rigid, but Kara could tell her resolved diminished slightly. “And I had a trust fund,” she finally admitted, biting her cheek, but keeping a passive look on her face.

Kara could tell from J’onn’s expression he had found the information he wanted. He half sat on the interrogation table, and asked his next question as if he already knew the answer. “How much was in this trust fund?” he inquired.

Lena slumped back in her chair. In a small voice she answered, “I don’t know. My mother never told me, but she said my father wanted it to be used for my schooling.”

J’onn nodded at the expected answer. “We’ve found Lionel Luthor was actively involved in your life,” he started, and Lena clenched her eyes shut and shook her head. “Though you may have never known it, he was always there in the shadows. Your mother kept a brief communication line to him until his death.”

“No,” Lena mumbled. The pain was written all over her face. She had been lied to her entire life. Her mother had lied to her her entire life; how had she not known?

J’onn continued despite her vulnerable state. “It would not be a far stretch to say then that Lex Luthor also had a line of communication to-”

“I am not a Luthor!” Lena cut him off, and her eyes flashed and glared up at J’onn.

Six Years Ago

“She’s in custody… do you want to speak to her?”

Alex’s eyes glared up at J’onn from her position against the wall. Teeth clenched and arms crossed rigidly against her chest, she shook her head definitively.

“If I speak to her, you won’t have a suspect anymore,” Alex spat, turning her eyes downward, allowing her threat to thicken the air in the room.

The DEO was bustling as usual, but Alex could tell people were walking a bit more nervously, in light of someone exposing her sister. God just the look on Kara’s face when Alex arrived at her apartment with the DEO… she looked completely broken.

Kara didn’t need to tell Alex what had happened. She had known right away that the situation had been going on for awhile. And while Alex had always been designated as Kara’s protector, well, Kara liked to ease Alex’s job wherever possible.

Even if that meant not telling Alex that some punk girl had been threatening her.

Kara was strong, but Alex couldn’t even imagine what this girl had put her sister through in the past several months to break her to this point. Or what kind of escalation had led to the post.

All she knew was that her sister needed protecting. And that was a job she knew best.

They were quickly packing up Kara’s things when Kara--with tears stains on her cheeks--half-heartedly said, “Maybe it wasn’t her.”

Alex stopped what she was doing, and sadly looked at her sister. Her sister whose heart was as pure as gold. Her sister who had been through more tragedy than she could imagine and still fought to see the best in everyone. Alex sighed.

“Kara, it’s… unlikely,” she offered, and Kara’s bottom lip stuck out further and trembled a bit. “Do you know if she knew?”

The pain of recognition in Kara’s eyes told Alex everything she needed to know, so instead of saying anything, she handed Kara a box.

They were well down the road when the messages started coming in.

Kara flinched at each one, but just stared at her phone, unable to bring herself to respond to any of them. Finally Alex put her hand on Kara’s shoulder and looked her in the eye.

“You know we have to destroy the phone. You should just do it now.”

Kara seemed torn as she swallowed thickly and looked back down at the phone. “I just have to… I have to respond first,” she said softly, and with a shaky breath, she typed slowly and numbly. When she hit send, her body tensed.

It didn’t take long before messages began coming in again. Alex watched painstakingly as each message affected Kara more than the last. Finally, it was Alex who could no longer take it.

“Kara,” she said tersely, and Kara jerked back to reality. “Now.”

She bit her lip, and nodded slightly, typing again, but this time it was a little faster.

When she hit send, a tear fell from her eye, and then she handed the phone over to Alex. The messenger app was open and she saw Kara’s most recent conversation was with who she suspected: Lena Michaels. And while every fiber in her body wanted to snoop on Kara’s phone and see for herself what this girl was sending her sister, Alex bit back the urge, and instead started a new message.

The phone was deactivated moments later.

Kara was silently curled up in a chair at the DEO when she spoke up, “I want to talk to her. Maybe I could clear this whole thing up. Maybe if I just-”

“Kara,” Alex cut her off gently. “Let us handle this okay. You don’t have to do anything; this is her fault, not yours, okay?”

Kara studied Alex intently, and Alex knew she wanted to fight back and protest, but eventually, the fight left Kara’s demeanor. She slumped back in her chair and nodded slightly, the tears forming once again.

Alex moved to leave the room, when Kara called out to her again. “If- I want to know why,” she said shakily. “I want to know why this happened.”

Alex nodded, and turn to walk out. She would make sure her sister got the answer she deserved. An answer to help her sleep at night so she wouldn’t have to be afraid of something like this continuing to happen.

It didn’t take long for J’onn to locate Lena. Alex had been standing the hallway outside her interrogation room for over an hour, glowering and nervously waiting for any news when J’onn had come out and asked if Alex would like to have a moment with her.

Alex didn’t want to speak to her though. She just wanted answers.

J’onn sighed. “We believe she was hacked.”

Alex’s brain stopped momentarily, as she pushed herself up from the wall. “What do you mean? We don’t know who made the post?” Alex asked frantically.

“Seems so. We’ll get our team to investigate, but Lena Michaels is innocent,” J’onn confirmed, and Alex stood there dumbfounded.

“She still- she still hurt Kara though,” Alex stated, unable to get the picture of Kara completely broken, curled up crying on her floor where Alex had found her out of her head. Unable to stop replaying every flinch that coursed through Kara’s body at every text notification. “And, oh god,” Alex continued, running her hand through her hair. “All she wanted to know was why, and you’re telling me we don’t know? What am I supposed to tell her?”

J’onn considered Alex carefully before taking a deep breath. “Just update her on the case. We’ll have more answers soon enough.”

“Kara?”

Her sister’s head popped up from the couch, and Alex swallowed thickly.

Kara must have sensed her hesitation, because upon looking at her sister, her face fell. “Alex? Alex what did you find out?”

Alex’s mouth was hanging open, and yet she couldn’t find the words to tell Kara that the perpetrator was still at large. That Kara was still technically in danger. And from her expression, Kara was able to put together the dots and assume the worst.

“I’m so sorry, Kara,” Alex finally managed to offer.

Her sister immediately collapsed into sobs, and Alex rushed to her side, and pulled her into her arms.

“Shhh Kara,” Alex soothed, tears falling from her eyes as well. “We don’t know why yet, but we’ll figure it out, okay? I’ve got you. I’ll protect you. Even though Lena-”

“Don’t say her name,” Kara choked out, and Alex flinched as Kara pulled back. “Don’t ever say her name or talk to me about her or this ever again. I don’t want to know what happens to her; she means nothing to me,” she insisted a little too forcefully.

Alex stared at Kara and found herself nodding, trembling slightly at the thought of how badly this girl had hurt Kara.

Kara then curled back into Alex, and softly began chanting: “I can move on. I can move on. I can move on.”

Alex heart broke as she gently stroked Kara’s hair and made a silent promise that she would do whatever it would take to help Kara move on from the nightmare she had been living in.

Lena waited.

She was sure that when Kara heard she had been cleared, she would contact her.

And so she waited.

She waited weeks and justified it by telling herself Kara needed some time to process being outed.

She waited months and justified it by telling herself Kara lost her number and promptly added her phone number to be viewed publicly on Facebook.

She waited a year and stopped justifying it, and instead just painfully acknowledged how pathetic she was.

But she still waited.

Sam and her graduated. They moved in together, closer to the city where both of them had found work. Sam in HR at a small insurance business; Lena as an engineer in a factory that designed forklifts. Time kept moving, but Lena still waited.

She wasn’t sure why at this point. It was clear Kara no longer wished to see her; that their relationship hadn’t been anything more than a short college fling.

But Lena knew she was kidding herself to say that’s all it was. Kara was… well Kara was the only person who saw Lena Michaels for who she was.

Lena, however, was becoming exhausted. She knew it was time to let go. Kara had asked her to all those years ago, and maybe that was the one last gift she could give her love. Just letting her go.

But then Supergirl made her debut.

Lena started at the front page picture for twenty minutes before Sam found her. Broken cup of coffee shattered on the floor; Lena standing rigidly, barely breathing as she took in the sight for the sorest of eyes.

Kara. Her Kara. On the front page of the newspaper.

Sam merely sighed and handed Lena the phone. Twenty four hours later Lena was U-hauling all her belongings across the country, freshly unemployed and homeless and heading towards the only sign her life had given her in a long time.

National City.

Chapter Text

The interrogation only lasted a little while longer and Kara became more and more anxious as the time went by. Lena was stiff and mostly unresponsive now as the questions were asked, but Kara could barely pay attention because she didn’t make the post.

After agonizingly waiting for what felt like forever, J’onn finally nodded and concluded the interrogation.

As J’onn exited the room, Kara immediately jumped into action, a stone expression in place, unreadable to anyone who couldn’t see the pain and fear in her eyes. As she tried to slide past J’onn through the door, J’onn’s hand gently grabbed her forearm.

Kara hesitated and slowly stepped back, refusing to make eye contact with J’onn whom she knew could hear her thoughts.

“She’s clean, Kara,” he murmured softly.

She nodded shortly, hoping to give off the air that that information didn’t break her a little, but she knew her body involuntarily stiffened. It was the final, absolute confirmation. Lena Michaels never was involved with the anti-alien attacks; she had always been the person Kara had believed she was against all odds.

It was… overwhelming to say the least, to find out the pain she had been hosting for six years was unfounded.

J’onn let go of her arm, and she entered the interrogation room, slowly closing the door behind her.

And then she just stood and stared. Lena’s eyes didn’t meet hers, but rather stayed pointed trained at the table. She didn’t need to look up to know who was occupying the space by the door.

The two of them remained silent for a few moments, while Kara willed herself not to start crying then and there.

Because there--right there--was Lena, her Lena. Someone she had avoided and not mentioned or thought of or let herself ponder for years, and the reasons as to why had suddenly just evaporated into thin air. But now there was a much thicker barrier between them: six years of silence.

“Well, get it out of your system,” Lena finally said bitterly, startling Kara from her thoughts. Kara’s eyebrows knitted together as she tried to piece together what Lena was looking for. “You want to yell at me for not doing a paternity test when we were dating? Or maybe you want to go through my newfound family tree of evil?”

“Why would I want that?” Kara mumbled softly, and Lena scoffed, a single tear falling from her eye.

“This is what I’ve been missing, right?” Lena cried out, her eyes meeting Kara’s a bit crazed and desperate. “I’ve been trying to figure out for years why you never contacted me, what reason you had found to actually hate me, and this was it, wasn’t it? You found out I’m a Luthor?”

Kara stared at her for a moment, mouth hanging slightly open as her brain processed through what the last six years must have been like for Lena to come to that conclusion. Finally, she shook her head. “I didn’t know,” she said quietly.

The reaction was immediate; Lena recoiled from the words, and shut down, avoiding eye contact again as a fresh round of tears streaked her cheeks.

“Oh so it was just me then,” she commented with a painful laugh.

“No!” Kara answered, fumbling to explain the past six years. “It- it wasn’t you, Lena-”

Both the girls stiffened as the name left Kara’s lips. The air in the room was tense, and Kara stood helplessly, unsure of how her life had even led to this moment.

After a shaky breath, Kara convinced her legs her move as she walked hesitantly to the chair across from Lena and immediately curled up into it, joining Lena’s staring game at the table.

A few moments passed where Lena didn’t acknowledge Kara’s presence, so with another shaky breath, Kara began again.

“I know you were hurt in the past six years, and if I had known, I would have never purposely done that to you,” she stated slowly, pouring as much sincerity into the words as she could manage and staring intently at the girl across from her, searching for the eyes that were so pointedly avoiding her own.

Lena scoffed slightly at the words, not wanting to believe them, but her eyes did eventually meet Kara’s, and the expression she was met with terrified her so much, she quickly averted her eyes again and swallowed the lump in her throat. Was it actually possible that Kara was in a position to be asking for forgiveness?

“If you’re asking me to forgive you for six years of silence-”

Kara shook her head. “No, I-I’m not. Not yet at least. I’m just trying to explain,” Kara reassured Lena, cutting herself off with a huff and burying her head into her hands and knees as she tried to figure out the best way to articulate herself. Lena just watched expressionless as Kara eventually unburied her head and stared at the table with tears in her eyes.

“You know how twenty minutes ago you said ‘I didn’t make the post’?” she finally asked desperately, voice cracking a bit, and while Lena’s expression remained stoic, a flit of confusion passed through her eyes. “That was the first time I had heard that.”

More confusion filled Lena’s eyes. “Metaphorically?” she asked after a short pause. But the look in Kara’s eyes caused Lena’s to widen.

“Nobody told me,” Kara finally admitted, biting the inside of her cheek.

Lena’s jaw clenched as she stiffened a bit and stared painfully at Kara. The silence seemed to tear the two apart as Kara waited.

Lena eventually took a sharp breath in and asked in disbelief, “Nobody told you?” The words sounded gritty as they were forced out, and her expression was an intense mixture of pain and confusion. Because how was she meant to believe that for six years, nobody had informed Kara that her ex-girlfriend wasn’t actually a crazy xenophobe hell bent on revenge?

And honestly, she wouldn’t have believed it, had it not been expression on Kara’s face that was clearly conveying that her whole world had been shifted under her, and her heart shattered from the deception.

“So that’s why you never contacted me again? Nobody told you I didn’t make that post, and you just thought ‘Well I guess everything she ever said to me was a lie and she hates me because I’m an alien’?” Lena finally asked, unable to stop the the questions from rolling out. Because even if Kara was never told, she just believed it without any second thought? She really thought that low of Lena?

“No,” Kara responded defensively, “I mean, yes kind of, but-” Kara huffed in frustration as Lena’s eyes narrowed at her, and her fists clenched. “What was I supposed to think, Lena?” she finally asked, a small dose of anger working into her voice.

Lena leaned back slightly, an incredulous look upon her face paired with a flash of anger herself. “What were you supposed to think? You were supposed to think ‘That’s my girlfriend and I know she loves me and supports me no matter what’,” Lena retorted, her voice raising slightly.

Kara’s nostrils flared. “Oh yeah, and I was supposed to get that from you becoming silent and uncomfortable every time alien rights were brought up? Or from you literally running away from me when I told you I was an alien? Or from you making an angry post outing me that I just found out twenty minutes ago was fake?”

“I knew you were an alien within the first month of dating you, Kara,” Lena snapped back, and Kara was genuinely surprised by this information, her face softening slightly and eyes widening a bit. “I stayed silent when those conversations were brought up because I didn’t want you to be forced to talk about something so personal and yet private to you. I ran away because I was upset you thought you being an alien would change my opinion of you. And you could have gotten all of that from me begging you to talk to me the next morning, even despite the post.”

Lena ended her speech definitely, but it honestly barely felt like a win. Kara just stared at her with wide sad eyes as she realized for the first time how much she had misread all those years ago.

Finally she averted her eyes down and fiddled with her fingers. “Okay,” she finally answered, voice wobbling. “Okay I see that now, but…” She trailed off and swallowed thickly, having trouble articulating herself.

Clenching her eyes shut, she took a moment and then spoke with a shaky breath. “Before I was Supergirl, I was very insecure and honestly at times terrified to be an alien on this planet. Every day I would see news of aliens being outed and then shunned from society. And that was if they were lucky. Others were beaten, abused, degraded into nothing but a species, and a lot of times those who turned on them were people they trusted: friends, family, loved-ones.” Kara paused for a moment to gather her thoughts, and then finally looked up at Lena with tear streaks down her cheeks. “I- I didn’t want to believe it, Lena. I was so desperate to not believe it because I knew you, and you were good, and Rao, there was no way you could have done it. And yet… you made the post. You outed me. You put my life in danger, and I had to leave everything behind because of it. So what was I supposed to think?”

The silence stretched out between them, as Lena solemnly considered Kara’s confession. She was attempting to keep her face as emotionless as possible, and yet she couldn’t help the few tears that fell. After several minutes of sitting in the dead quiet and crying silently, Lena took in a breath and opened her mouth.

But at that moment the door to the interrogation room swung open, and both girls turned to see J’onn standing there, a solemn look on his face. Their eyebrows crinkled in confusion as they sniffed up some of their tears, and he sighed loudly.

“You two should come with me.”

Kara’s jaw was dropped slightly open as she took in the room around her. Briefly her subconscious acknowledged that both Lena and Alex shared her expression of pure confusion. But they all stood silently, taking in their surroundings.

“What is this?” Lena finally asked, her voice shakily calling out. And the sigh that was emitted from J’onn pulled all three girls’ attention back to him.

“This is a situation we’ve been monitoring for several years now,” J’onn answered slowly, and Lena took a step back with wide eyes as they continued to roam around the room.

After a moment of silence, she sucked in a sharp breath and turned back to J’onn. “This is my life,” she stated simply, but a bit of fear infiltrated her voice.

She was right. Surrounding the group on the walls of the room they had just entered was surveillance footage, news articles, social media posts of Lena. Well, mostly of Lena. There was a considerable amount of Lex Luthor upon the walls as well.

“J’onn?” Alex called out from behind Kara, and she unconsciously stiffened at the voice. Kara hadn’t even been able to look at her sister since the post discovery. “What is all of this?”

J’onn hesitated before he responded. “The relationship between Lex Luthor and Lena is a complicated. We were surveilling it prior to the post, but after Lena was brought in for questioning all those years ago, we switched tactics and monitored more diligently,” he explained.

“It sounds like you were spying on me,” Lena observed angrily and gritted her teeth. “I thought you said I was clean. I don’t know Lex Luthor.”

“But he knows you,” J’onn interrupted, and Lena was slightly taken aback by this. “I will admit, in the beginning we were wary of your connection with your brother, but soon learned that you had no idea of his influence in your life.”

“His influence?” Kara injected, and both Lena and J’onn turned their attention to her furrowed brow.

J’onn nodded slightly. “It seems the elder Luthor suffers a great deal of jealousy towards his sister. He had discovered her existence and his father removed affection towards her--an affection he never received himself. He began with mild tactics to enact a sort of revenge on his father’s favorite: intercepting college acceptance letters, preventing scholarships and internships opportunities, things like that.

“We learned of your existence when Kara became your acquaintance at school, as we also kept a close eye on Alex’s sister and Superman’s cousin. Lex had already been on our radar for some of his rhetoric and power of his inventions. Quickly we learned of his interaction with your life. I believe this is when he had convinced his friend Jack to date you and subsequently emotionally manipulate you.”

Lena was reeling at this point. There was too much information to take in, and yet parts of her life were beginning to make sense. The colleges she should have been accepted into, but never was. The companies that promised her opportunity and then turned her down later with no warning. Jack.

That was the one that really had her stumbling over. The whole time? The whole time Lena had been with him, he was purposefully manipulating her? Her breathing shortened as she dawned on the realization of the extent of Lex had had on her life.

“Unfortunately,” J’onn continued slowly, “We think this is how Lex latched on to Kara as well.” All three girls’ eyes shot up to J’onn at this point. Lex Luthor had made it very well know his obsession and hatred towards Superman, but Supergirl had never really been in his radar; she hadn’t made her debut, so she was safe by design.
Or so they had thought.

“We intercepted a correlation between Lex and Jack. Jack claimed Kara attacked him at a party, effortlessly, with superhuman strength and speed. Lex questioned him several times to make sure he wasn’t too drunk to know what had happened, but Jack was adamant. So Lex began his research on Kara,” J’onn explained to a perplexed audience. “It’s unclear whether he ever came to the full conclusion that Kara was Superman’s cousin back then, but he learned enough to know she wasn’t from this planet. It’s also unclear why he chose that particular night to hack into Lena’s account and make that post. But one thing we know for sure: he has continued surveillance on both of you for the past six years.”

The two girls shifted uncomfortably at this information. Lex Luthor. Lex Luthor was the one who tore them apart.

“Kara, we were able to shield you from most of it, forcing you as deep underground as possible for a few years. Until you became Supergirl of course. Lex had gone insane by that point and was locked up though. Lena on the other hand,” J’onn started and trailed off slightly and Lena tightened her jaw as he looked at her. “You’re not technically under our jurisdiction, and the FBI don’t really handle cases like this. But… I knew how much you meant to one of our own,” he paused, and everyone glanced at Kara who was steeling herself against the tears. “You were linked to Lex, so surveilling you could be considered a part of that. We did as much as we could to protect you from him.”

Lena nodded at that, as a tear slipped from her eye. “Thank you,” she mumbled. J’onn nodded back at her and gave her a small sad smile.

“But now,” he started again. “We need to talk about why you’re here today.” Everyone’s eyes shot up at this.

“Officially speaking, you were under our surveillance as a potential link to Lex, and technically speaking, bringing you into the DEO without making sure beyond a doubt that you weren’t was a potential risk. I had to do the interrogation, and you had to think it was completely real for it to be genuine and for me to get a full read on you,” he explained. “But also, I had to bring you in because it’s time that you knew what was going on.”

Lena considered this for a moment. “Why now? Why not six years ago?” she finally asked, her voice cracking slightly.

J’onn remained silent and then said, “The situation has escalated. Lex made an attempt on your life. You are now officially under DEO protection.”

Lena’s eyes widened at this and Kara jumped into action.

“What! J’onn, I-”

J’onn held up a silent hand and a look that clearly read “not in front of the civilian”. Kara bit her cheek and slumped a little, not needing heat vision with a glare a strong as hers.

“He… tried to kill me?” Lena finally asked breathlessly, tears forming in her eyes.

“We removed you from the situation promptly and brought you here, Lena. We were never going to let that happen. From now on, you’ll be under constant unnoticeable supervision. We’re managing the situation out there and provided your work with a valid excuse for your absence. We don’t know how he could’ve plan this from his imprisonment or why he’s suddenly become much more aggressive, but we’ve taken care of everything,” J’onn reassured her, but it didn’t stop her tears as she tried to keep her expression resilient. “We have a room prepared for you here, until it’s safe for you to return to your own home. One of our agents will take you there now.”

Lena nodded numbly at this, and looked up at J’onn as he took a step towards her. “This is a lot to take in Lena, but I know you’re strong and I know you’ll get through this,” he comforted her softly.

She stared up at him for a second and then quickly wrapped her arms around him and buried her head in his chest. Gently J’onn returned the hug. When she pulled back, she glanced briefly at Kara, who’s expression was unreadable. Then averting her eyes, she turned and promptly followed the agent waiting for her out of the room.

The three of them remaining sat uncomfortably in the silence for a moment.

Finally J’onn sighed. “Kara your thoughts are loud enough to practically be screaming anyways, so why don’t you-”

“How could you, J’onn!” she burst with anger. “You knew. You knew what she meant to me and you knew I didn’t know, and you just didn’t tell me that not only wasn’t she innocent, she was in danger! How could you not-”

“Kara,” J’onn started cutting her off, his voice gentle and still firm. Kara clenched her teeth. “I didn’t know Alex didn’t tell you. At least not right away. But in the beginning of this whole situation, I barely knew you. I was protecting Lena because I knew how much she meant to you, and she was Lex’s sister, so she needed someone to protect her, but that’s as far as that mentality went. Your relationship with Lena was not my concern. If I told you Lena was innocent and danger, you would have recklessly outed yourself as her personal bodyguard, opening you and her up to more danger. My only goal was to protect you both, and that included from yourselves.”

Kara slumped at this tears in her eyes as she still held a look of complete betrayal on her face.

“I will admit, though,” J’onn continued. “Had I known you then like I do know, I would’ve handled the situation differently. And I feel guilty for and will apologize for that.”

Kara sniffed as she wiped away a tear, and J’onn gently came up and hugged her. Then, softly into her hair, he whispered, “I can promise you that’s not true.”

Kara jumped at his answer to her unspoken fear running through her head. Looking up at J’onn, he nodded and she swallowed thickly at the implications of his response.

Pulling back with a sigh, he glanced over at Alex and then back at Kara. “I’m going to leave you two alone now. You have a lot to discuss,” he prompted, as he slowly turned and made his way out of the room.

Kara stiffened at this proposal, not wanting to discuss anything with the person who purposefully kept her away from Lena for the past six years. And after a moment alone in the room with Alex, Kara tried to bolt for the door, but Alex cried out.

“Kara, wait! Please wait,” Alex begged, her voice cracking a bit, and Kara stopped but refused to turn around. “I would like to explain myself, fully, if you’ll let me, and if I can,” she offered.

Kara didn’t say anything or move, so Alex took this as her cue to continue.

“I had no idea, Kara. I had no idea Lena meant so much to you, and I obviously would have told you if I knew. It was- God Kara it was years ago, and you were my kid sister I still had to protect,” Alex began rambling. “I thought Lena had been emotionally attacking you, and so when I went to tell you she didn’t do it, I thought you knew. I thought you were upset because that meant we couldn’t solve who was attacking you and why.”

Kara slowly turned around now, tears streaming down her face. “But you never said anything else. You never followed up. You didn’t think to update me?”

Alex breathed heavily. “You asked me not to, and I thought I was protecting you by not. It was so long ago, Kara, and I didn’t even get updates from J’onn. He kept me out of this whole operation,” Alex explained, waving around at the room. “And you didn’t even officially know I was a part of the DEO back then. You thought this and I were FBI; I wasn’t technically allowed to talk to you about any of this anyways.”

Crossing her arms Kara huffed as she tried to get her tears to subside and refused to meet Alex’s waiting eyes. So Alex tried one last time.

“Looking back now, I can tell you two were romantically linked by the way you talked about her and were so worried for her, but Kara, I didn’t even know I was gay back then, so I clearly wasn’t very good at picking up on the subtext at that time in my life,” she tried to joke. And while it fell flat, she was semi-comforted by the pained look on Kara’s face as she tried not to smile slightly at Alex’s self jab. “If I could go back, you know I would tell you, right? If I had known, I would have never kept that from you. I didn’t even know I was keeping it from you.”

Kara stood there, silent and conflicted, considering this for a moment. Finally she said softly, “I’m going to go check on Lena.” And then she turned and left Alex in the room alone.

It didn’t take her long to find the room they had put Lena in. It was one of the more comfortable rooms in the DEO, and for that Kara was grateful.

“Did they get you everything you need?” Kara asked quietly, yet it still startled Lena as she whipped around to face her.

They stared at each other intensely until Lena eventually broke the connection and averted her gaze towards the ground.

“Uh yes,” she answered. “I seem to be all set.”

Kara took an unconscious step into the room. “Because I know you get super cold at night, so if you need extra blankets, I can have someone go run and find you one-”

“I’m good,” Lena gently cut Kara off, eyes wandering up towards the Super warily. As if it pained her that even after six years, this girl still knew little details about her. “Thanks, Kara.”

Kara nodded at this and swallowed thickly, looking at Lena expectantly. With a small sigh, Lena gestured to one of the chairs in the room.

“You wanna sit for a little bit?” she offered hesitantly, and Kara immediately made her way over to the chair and sat as Lena anxiously took a seat across from her.

The two once again embraced the silence that seemed to follow them everywhere that day. Kara subconsciously began counting Lena’s heartbeats as a way to pass the time.

“I’m sorry,” Lena finally started, and Kara’s eyes shot up to hers with furrowed eyebrows.

“Why are you sorry?” Kara asked, genuinely confused. “I’m the one who should’ve been protecting you all these years, and who should’ve reached out.”

Lena paused for a moment. “I never considered what it would be like to be closeted and afraid as an alien and how my actions would’ve affected those emotions. I should’ve made more of an effort to show my support; I’m sorry”

Kara stared at Lena. “I should’ve made more of an effort to believe in you,” she admitted honestly. “I was so wrapped up in my fear, I lost my faith in you, and for that I will always be sorry. I- I’m not like other aliens. I’m privileged with the power and influence my identity gives me, and I should’ve used that to contact you. I shouldn’t have cowered away at one post, and I’m sorry.”

Their apologies hung heavily in the air, and no forgivenesses were ready to relieve some of the pain of them.

Instead both girls just sat in silence and thought over the positions they were both in. They considered how everyone involved, including themselves, had admitted they would’ve handled six years ago differently than they would now, knowing everything they know. But where did that leave them in beginning to adjust and move on?

Kara briefly wondered if it was too late for her and Lena to mend what seemed to be broken beyond recognition, but her mind flashed back to the last time that thought had entered her head, and J’onn’s decisive response to it:

“I can promise that’s not true.”

It became a daily routine for Kara. Every lunch break, she was at the DEO, bringing take out so Lena wouldn’t be forced to eat whatever food the DEO came up with for her. Then, as soon as she was finished with her work for the day, she was back at the DEO, balancing her time between helping with the Lex Luthor case or just sitting with Lena.

Almost a week had passed and Kara was a surprised almost at how naturally the conversations between her and Lena had returned. Of course, there were still long moments of awkward silence and passive aggressive comments made, but Kara still saw it as more progress than she ever could have hoped for. She was learning so much about the Lena she had missed in the past six years.

When she moved to National City, she had gotten a job as a quality engineer in a plant of an auto parts factory, but she had since been promoted to head of the quality department. She admitted shyly that promotions like that don’t often happen so quickly, but the former head was retiring and recommended her for her tireless work.

She was renting a small one bedroom house just outside the city, and disclosed she wasn’t sure if National City would ever feel truly like a home, as it was a much bigger city than where she grew up.

Kara wanted to ask her if she ever tried to get in contact with Kara, either as herself or as Supergirl, but she refrained. One evening, however, after a hefty amount of potstickers and a lighthearted movie, Lena answered the question unprompted.

“It was impossible to find you,” she stated, eyes still glued to the screen of the tv as the end credits scrolled by, and Kara just stared at her for a moment, caught a bit off guard. “I kept thinking I wanted to clear the air, even if you didn’t want to see me again, and so I tried to find you several times, and it was just… impossible.”

She let the words hang in the air, and Kara shifted uncomfortably.

Clearing her throat nervously and fidgeting with her hands, she averted her eyes downward. “Yeah, I, um, had to stop using my name for awhile, because of the whole post thing. They wanted me to get rid of it entirely, but I already lost Zor-El, and I just couldn’t bear to lose Danvers as well, you know? We compromised, so now I just write under a pseudonym, but I’m still not allowed to have any social media accounts linked to my name. That’s- that’s probably why you couldn’t find me.”

She glanced up at Lena then, who was staring at her sadly. “Yeah, probably,” she murmured in response.

If either of them noticed the tear fall from Lena’s eye, neither acknowledged it.

Lena’s eyebrow crinkled after watching Kara for a moment, and Kara--even after all these years--recognized Lena was about to say something big that was bothering her. But with a deep breath in, her faced relaxed and the moment was gone.

“It’s a shame I never went through with my idea of just jumping off a building and forcing you to save me,” she jested quietly. “You wouldn’t have been able to avoid me then.”

Kara gave a half-genuine, half-forced laughter at this. “Yeah, I guess I wouldn’t have,” she admitted.

The girls sat in silence for a little while longer before Kara announced she was going to find J’onn for updates on the case.

Other unexpected conversations followed.

“Have you seen anyone else? In the past six years?” Lena tried to ask with a casual interest one day as they ate Chinese take out, but Kara could tell the curiosity was burning inside her. Not that Kara could blame her; she had been wondering the same thing.

But instead of answering right away, Kara made it clear it was a question she was interested in having answered as well. “Have you?” she innocently asked back, but they both heard the insecurity in the question.

Lena let out a slightly sarcastic laugh. “I moved to National City the moment I saw your picture in the paper,” she admitted, refusing to meet Kara’s eyes.

Kara stared at her for a moment, and then returned to eating her food. “Me either,” she finally answered softly, and the conversation was dropped.

“Have you forgiven your sister?” Lena asked another day in the middle of a game of Chutes and Ladders.

Kara started at the question, and sputtered for an answer. “I- why?” she asked, clearly avoiding the question. Because the truth was she hadn’t forgiven Alex yet. It had only been a few days.

And Kara could tell it was eating Alex up inside. It was eating Kara up inside that it was eating Alex up inside. But Alex had lied to her for years and she just couldn’t bring herself to forgive her for it yet. Even if it hurt every time their eyes met and there was a strange silence that hadn’t existed in their relationship in years.

Lena shrugged. “I just remember how much you would ramble on and on about Alex. You really looked up to her and you two were super close. I wouldn’t want my brother’s actions to come between that, when he’s the one to blame,” she explained simply, spinning the spinner and moving her piece.

Kara just stared at Lena though. And when enough time had passed that Kara should have taken her turn, but clearly hadn’t, Lena’s eyes met hers in a question.

“Lex isn’t your brother, Lena,” Kara insisted, and the assertive statement took Lena by surprise. She paused for a moment, and then opened her mouth to respond, but Kara spoke again before she had the chance. “Family isn’t blood. It’s so much more than that.”

Lena studied her for a moment, and then nodded. “Well, I think you should listen to yourself then,” she suggested, pushing the spinner towards Kara so she would finally take her turn. “Family is so much more than blood, and that’s why you should forgive your sister.”

Kara gritted her teeth, and turned her attention to the spinner.

The next day, Kara pulled Alex aside, much to her sister’s surprise. Alex’s eyes waited sadly in anticipation as Kara closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“I’m still really really mad at you and this situation,” she prefaced with, and she heard Alex swallow nervously. “But I just wanted you to know that I don’t hate you, and don’t blame you entirely, and this has just been hard to process, okay? I will forgive you eventually, I just- there’s too much right now,” she finished, eyes searching Alex’s.

But instead of answering directly, Alex’s arms were quickly wrapped securely around Kara in a tight hug, to which Kara slowly reciprocated. Neither were sure which one started crying first, but when they pulled away from the hug, they both tried to sneakily wipe and sniff away their tears.

“You’re going to have my reputation as a hardass ruined,” Alex joked quietly as she gently blotted away a tear, and Kara laughed quietly at this. Then turning a bit more serious, Alex grabbed Kara’s hands. “You have every right to take all the time you need, Kara. But you do know that I truly am sorry, right?”

Kara nodded. Of course she knew. Her sister couldn’t intentionally hurt her if she tried.

A quick moment of silence passed before Alex let out a long sigh. “So… how’s she doing?” she asked softly. Kara glanced up at her with the corners of her mouth slightly upturned, but it came off as a partial grimace.

“I know she’s trying to save face and stay calm, but a lot has changed for her in the past week, and I can’t judge how well she’s handling that,” Kara admitted. “I remember what it was like being cut off from the world all those years ago, and it was awful, but at least I had you through it. All Lena has is her college ex who ghosted her for six years, so I can’t imagine she’s doing as well as she lets on.”

Alex’s hand softly rubbed Kara’s back. “I’m sorry Kara. This has to be a difficult situation for you both,” she comforted, and Kara hmpfed at that.

“She’s made it clear she’d rather have me visit than no one, and I’m doing everything I can to make sure it’s safe for her to return to her life. I just wish I could do more for her, you know?” Kara asked helplessly, and as Alex began to nod, her head shot up.

“What if you could?”

“Okay, you have to promise you won’t tell anyone about this,” Kara stated seriously after she shut the door to Lena’s room later that evening and closed all the blinds.

“You’re being more weird than normal,” Lena murmured amused, and Kara didn’t allow herself to dwell too much on the playful comment.

Pulling a cellphone out from behind her back, she walked towards Lena. “We’ve secured a impenetrable connection to your mother’s phone. You only have twenty minutes, and you obviously can’t mention anything about all of this, but… here,” Kara tried to state seriously handing Lena the phone, but it was hard to keep her excitement out of her voice when Lena looked at her so happy she could cry.

“Kara, this is- this is amazing, all I’ve wanted this past week is to hear her voice,” Lena admitted, and when her eyes met Kara’s, they were wide with gratitude. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Kara insisted. “Twenty minutes, call!” she demanded, and they both smiled as Kara left to wait outside the door and fake some privacy for Lena.

And she did well, she thought, at not eavesdropping. She caught bits and pieces of their conversation every now and then, but she tried to keep her focus on playing little mini-games with herself to pass the time.

When the twenty minutes were up and Kara noticed the voices inside the room had ceased, she stood and reentered the room. Lena sat on her bed cross-legged, staring at the phone with a mixture of renewed happiness and lingering sadness.

“How was she?” Kara asked politely, startling Lena who was so deep in her thoughts, she hadn’t even noticed Kara’s presence beside her.

Lena flashed her a smile that Kara could tell was forced. “She’s really good. Making my favorite rice dish for dinner, and said she’d make enough for leftovers if I was planning on visiting this weekend,” she reported with a disappointment in her voice.

Kara took a deep breath and sat down beside Lena on the bed. “Lena, I’m so sorry we’re keeping you here. We’re doing everything we can to get you out of her as soon as possible,” Kara promised, but Lena just clenched her eyes shut and waved Kara off.

“It isn’t that,” she mumbled, and Kara furrowed her eyebrows. “I mean it is; it sucks being stuck here, but that’s not-” Lena cut herself off with a sigh and buried her head in her hands.

Kara waited for a moment concerned before she spoke. “Lena? Lena what is it?”

Lena clenched her teeth and then sat up and looked Kara in the eyes.

“I think I know why Lex tried to kill me.”

The day the DEO finally deemed it was safe to return Lena to her home, Kara immediately told Snapper she was sick and raced to the DEO, anxious to get Lena home, for several reasons.

One of them was because Lena refused to disclose her knowledge on Lex’s motive behind the murder attempt until she got home. “I have to be sure,” she kept saying, and while Kara furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, J’onn simply nodded and allowed it, and she supposed he would know best if he knew what she was thinking.

But the other reason was because she had a surprise waiting for Lena when she arrived home.

“Hey,” Kara greeted slightly breathlessly and with a genuine smile that Lena returned. Kara briefly considered how far they had come in a week and a half that they could smile at each other without forcing it, but she supposed that’s what happens when someone finally gets to escape captivity.

Kara had been granted permission to fly Lena home personally, much to Lena’s initial dismay.

“I’m really scared of heights,” she argued. “Like really scared.”

“You’re safer with me than on a plane, plus I can get you there faster, and we can investigate this whole motive thing you say might be at your house,” Kara reasoned, and Lena couldn’t come up with a reason to say no to that.

“Give us updates if you learn anything, Kara,” J’onn instructed formally, and Kara nodded before she turned to Lena.

“If I’m holding you too tightly, just let me know,” she murmured, and there was a brief, charged look between the two of them as they both realized this was the most physical contact they were to have in years. But as soon as the moment came, it left, and Kara gingerly wrapped her arms around her and took off.

They were at Lena’s house moments later, and as they landed, Lena sighed as she took in the sight.

“It sounds silly, but I think I could cry just looking at this place,” she admitted with a small laugh, and Kara offered a small smile.

“It’s not silly,” she murmured, and Lena turned to Kara, her mouth part way open as if she were trying to say something.

“Aunt Lena!”

Lena’s thoughts were interrupted as the door to her house was slammed open and a very energetic ten year old flew out and tackled her in a hug.

It took Lena only a moment to catch up before she was clutching tightly to and hugging Ruby. A few tears slipped through her eyes as Ruby recounted how much she had missed Lena the past couple of months. The child seemed unaware Lena had been taken away for a week and a half or so, as she had been across the country and unable to visit for some time now.

When Lena looked up from Ruby and saw Sam standing there beaming at her, Lena desperately reached for and clung to her best friend, confused, but beyond grateful to see her there.

Finally pulling back, Lena sputtered. “Wha- What? How are you two-”

Sam laughed and cut her off. “Kara called us. Explained a little of what went down and asked if we’d be willing to make the trip up to see you when you were let out,” Sam explained, shooting a pointed look back towards Kara.

Then before Kara could react, Lena was hugging her, and Kara was holding her so tightly. When they eventually let go of each other, Lena whispered, “Thank you. You have no idea what this means to me.”

Kara shrugged off the praise. “You’ve had a rough week. I wanted you to be able to spend some time with loved ones when you were finally not forced to hang out with me.”

The joke passed through Lena funnily, and her face crinkled a bit, but once again before she could say anything, Ruby interrupted.

“Aunt Kara?” she asked, a bit hesitant but trying to hide her excitement. Kara’s heart almost broke when she saw how much hope Ruby had in her eyes seeing her long lost aunt for the first time in years.

“Hey kiddo,” Kara finally greeted, crouching down to her level. “How have you been?” But instead of answering, Ruby ran over and squeezed Kara in a hug so tight, Kara was glad she was practically made of steel.

“I missed you; why don’t I ever see you anymore? Is it because you live with Aunt Lena in National City?” Ruby asked innocently, and an awkward silence passed through all three women at the question.

Finally Kara pulled back and forced a smile. “I’ve just been busy, that’s all, Rubes,” she assured her, and it was enough of an answer for Ruby to drop the question.

Standing back up, Kara felt a bit out of place around the two women who used to be her best friends, but Sam eventually came to the rescue.

“Hey Rubes, let’s go finish making dinner, so Lena and Kara can have a grown up talk, okay?” Sam grabbed Ruby’s hand and gave the two pointed looks before leading her daughter back inside.

After a beat of silence, Lena cleared her throat. “Right, so you’re probably wondering about that motive,” she started, and while that was currently the last thing on Kara’s mind, she nodded anyways and followed Lena inside.

Kara struggled to not take in every single aspect of Lena’s house and try to learn everything she could about her. She was here technically on official business and shouldn’t be getting distracted, but still. Kara couldn’t help it.

Eventually they reached Lena’s bedroom, and Kara lingered awkwardly at the doorway as Lena revealed a secret nook in the wall where she pulled out a manila envelope.

Taking a deep breath, she walked back over to Kara and held it between them. “I’ve never opened this,” she admitted. “My mother gave it to me a few years ago, saying my father would’ve wanted me to have it. I didn’t think much of it, and honestly, was terrified of opening it because my father died before I was born, and I just… didn’t want to know who he was or what this held. It was long irrelevant anyways, or so I had thought.”

She huffed, as her voice started to crack. “I always thought it was odd, my mother would insist it was my choice to open it up, to see what was inside. It just made it that much more stressful and caused me to hide from it even more. It- It makes sense now though.”

Kara gently laid a hand on Lena’s forearm, causing her eyes to shoot up to her. “Lena. What’s in the envelope?”

She sucked in a slight breath, and replied, “My father’s last will and testament… which means if you all are correct, this is-”

“Lionel Luthor’s final will,” Kara finished for her, and her eyes widened as she realized the implications.

Lena sighed and clenched the envelope tightly. “You don’t think he would have really… do you?” Her question trailed off, but Kara knew exactly what she was implying. If this will contained what they thought it did, it would give Lex Luthor every reason to want Lena dead.

Kara let out a shaky breath. “There’s only one way to find out,” she answered, and Lena nodded at this.

Slowly, holding her breath, she removed the paper from the folder. Her eyes began scanning the page, and her hand shot up to her mouth in shock as she kept reading. When she got to the bottom, her eyes looked up to Kara’s with tears in them. Kara waited in anticipation for her to relate the news.

“He left me everything,” she finally disclosed, and Kara felt the breath knocked out of her. “Kara, he left me everything. His fortune, his mansion, Luthor Corp: it’s all mine if I want it.” Lena stared in shock at the paper, and then shoved it back to Kara, running into the bathroom.

Kara called after her, but seconds later, she heard Lena throwing up into the toilet. After waiting a minute, Kara took a deep breath and cautiously made her way to the bathroom, even though it felt wrong to be invading Lena’s space like this.

“Lee?” she called out softly, and turned to find Lena haggardly sitting by the toilet in a trance. Without a second thought, Kara sat down beside Lena.

After a beat, a small laugh bubbled up out of Lena. And that small laugh turned into a hysterical howl as tears began pouring from her eyes. Kara just watched with concern written all over her face.

“I’m an heiress,” she finally exclaimed through her fit of laughter. “Me. The girl who grew up in shitty apartment with a single mom who could barely make ends meet; who barely could afford food week to week in college; who works at an auto parts factory checking the quality of tire hubs. I am an heiress!” she exclaimed becoming more and more frenzied with with every passing moment. “Well, I mean, if I choose to be.” This caused her to pause and look seriously up at Kara.

“Should I choose to be?” she asked seriously. “Lex Luthor wants me dead for this, and I don’t know how to run a business, let alone a multi-billion dollar corporation, and I’ve never even been to Metropolis, and Kara what do I do?” she asked wildly, her eyes searching Kara’s for any sense of grounding.

Gently, Kara stood up and held out her hand to Lena. “First, you clean yourself up, and then you think it over. You do some research; you weight the pros and cons. You decide the Lena Michaels way: with as much thoroughness as possible. And you’ll come to the right decision,” Kara answered seriously.

Lena stared up at Kara and her outstretched hand for a long moment, and then wiped away a tear and took her hand to pulled herself up. Kara offered her a small smile and went to drop Lena’s hand and turn to walk away, but Lena held onto it firmly, pulling Kara’s attention.

“Thank you, Kara,” she said sincerely. “I just hope you know…” she trailed off and then took a deep breath. “A lot of things have changed for me in the past week and a half, and I just want you to know that having you with me through it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I- I have a lot to work through right now, and-” She sighed again, unsure of what exactly she wanted to say.

But thankfully Kara cut in. “I completely understand. I don’t think I have quite as much as you but… we can keep each other updated? On how working through it is going?” she offered, and Lena smiled gratefully. It didn’t seem like the time or place yet, to offer the forgiveness they would both eventually seek. But at least for now they had standing reservations in each other’s hearts for when that time would come.

When they finally got Lena cleaned up, they returned the will to the envelope, and returned it to Lena’s hiding place. As they exited the bedroom, Ruby was right there to greet them.

“Perfect timing!” she announced, startling them both a little. “We just finished dinner. Aunt Kara, are you joining us?”

Sam, Lena, and Ruby all looked to Kara to see what her answer would be, and while Kara desperately wanted to say yes to catch up with Sam and Ruby, she shifted uncomfortably, and glanced at Lena who was watching her carefully. Lena deserved some time away from her, she decided.

And so with a forced smile, she looked down at Ruby apologetically. “I’m sorry, Rubes, but I’ve gotta get back to work. Maybe next time okay?” Kara tried to offer.

Ruby sighed, but accepted the answer. The group walked to the door together to see Kara out. She hugged Ruby and Sam again, the latter of which whispered they would have to catch up just the two of them sometime soon.

Then Kara turned to Lena. “Well, guess you’re glad to be getting rid of me finally,” she joked, but it fell flat, as Lena barely attempted to crack a smile, and just stood there lamely staring at Kara.

Eventually she did hug her, but she didn’t say anything until Kara was halfway out the door, in which she whispered “bye”.

Kara tried not to let it sting. They had a lot to work through after all, and she shouldn’t have expected much of a grand departure anyways. She was halfway down the sidewalk, when she heard the door slam open behind her and hurried footsteps running towards her.

She turned around just in time to balance herself before her arms caught the woman who crashed into her, soft lips immediately connecting with her own.

It was like a piece of her life she had been missing for so long finally slipped back into place when she felt those familiar lips on her own after all these years.

They pulled away from each other and noted Lena was crying. After a moment, she realized she was as well.

“We still have a lot to work through,” Lena announced, and Kara nodded. “But neither of us are going to walk away this time until we’ve actually discussed things through.” Kara nodded again. “And we’re going to have to build up to a place where we can trust each other like we did back then.”

This time instead of nodding, Kara just kissed Lena again. When she pulled away, her hand lightly stroked Lena’s cheek.

“I’m all in Lena,” she whispered. At this, Lena began sobbing more openly and pulled Kara into a hug, burying her head into Kara’s neck.

They weren’t sure how long they stayed like that, but eventually they pulled away from each other, both sniffling a little. And Kara looked at her with such a renewed hope.

“Do you want to get coffee together on Saturday?” Kara asked hopefully, and Lena considered it for a moment.

Kara wondered in that moment what it would be like, to one day be told your life had been chosen for you. It honestly wasn’t a feeling all too unfamiliar to Kara. Colleges, jobs, relationships: Lex Luthor had taken them all away from Lena. But in this moment, Kara watched Lena realize that for the first time in her life, she would get to start making real choices.

And then realizing the easiest choice was standing right in front of her, she nodded.

“I promise I won’t spill it on you,” she teased slightly with a hiccuped sob, and Kara buried her in another hug.