Chapter Text
When Lena Luthor comes into her life, Kara feels like she’s on the precipice of something unknown. She has just begun to heal over the loss of Astra, Mon-El’s pod had just landed, Cat had just offered her a promotion, and things with James had been confusing. She knew her life was changing, but it felt out of her control. As if she was a bystander in her own story. Kara had then spent those next few days with Clark, ‘investigating’ the crash of the Venture and subsequently, the innocence of Lena Luthor.
At their first meeting, when Lena had spoken her truth, “I’m just a woman trying to make a name for herself outside of her family,” Kara, in hindsight realizes the following words, “you understand that ” are meant to be rhetorical. The blonde had responded, almost automatically, pulled in by the young Luthor’s earnest plea. From that moment on, Lena became a pull that Kara could not resist. She found the Luthor honest, despite Clark’s attempts to prove otherwise.
Later, after the shining publication by Clark of LutherCorp’s rebranding to LCorp, the young CEO with her suave smile and green eyes had cheekily responded to Kara’s comment that she was not a reporter with a, “you could’ve fooled me. ” It had given Kara the gentle confidence she needed to tell Cat Grant that she indeed wanted to be promoted to a reporter.
It was then that Kara took a dive, much like the first time she really flew, diving off a cliff in Midvale towards the calm beach water below. This dive, however, was much more deeply centered on her identity, who Kara Danvers was when she wasn’t Supergirl. Kara Danvers, who is a reporter, who seeks the truth, who connects with others, and who speaks for those who cannot speak for themselves.
It’s with Lena, who is first her interviewee, then her friend, and suddenly her best friend, that she gets to be Kara Danvers: Reporter with.
As best friends, they have weekly lunches, sometimes canceled and postponed by CEO duties, or National City’s emergencies, but they somehow manage. Kara will often grab Chinese but stop at a GreenLeaf for Lena. She doesn’t understand younger women’s affinity for Kale and Lena swears “they’re power greens, Kara” , but she supposes, whatever makes her happy.
It’s at one of these lunches that Lena invites Kara over to her place for the first time. Really, Kara shouldn’t have been as surprised as she was, as Lena had been over to hers many times before, but the shock comes from the way Lena asks almost shyly and how can Kara even think of saying no?
So she doesn’t. She says yes, and they’re meant to be meeting tonight. The blonde is brought out of her reverie by a text chiming on her phone. She swiftly crosses the room to her desk at Catco, settling into her chair and lifting the screen to her face.
LL: 1500 Millenium Square after work? Bring an ID for the front desk, I’ll take care of dinner?
Kara smiles and immediately responds with two thumbs up emojis as an affirmative.
The rest of the work day flies by in a blur, she has three leads she’s following for Snapper, one Supergirl emergency and she texts Alex when 5pm rolls around begging her sister to have J’onn cover anything below “alien invasion.” She wants to make sure this first time at Lena’s place is fun and uninterrupted, she wants time with her best friend, and in the back of her mind, she just knows that this is a big step for Lena.
“Oh my God, no!” Lena’s in a fit, laughing as Kara gesticulates widely trying to explain that yes it is important that 90s pop music be played to current teenagers everywhere . Lena feels light, as Kara sits on the other side of her leather sofa, still rambling on.
“They don’t write music like that anymore!” Kara throws her whole being behind this statement as if the whole world would crumble if Lena didn’t believe her. “All of the songs were bops! So fun and danceable! Uncomplicated.” The blonde pushes her glasses up her nose and points directly at Lena with a huff, as the CEO just continues to laugh, barely hiding it behind her hand as she reaches for her wine glass.
“And no matter what I do, I feel the pain With or without you,” Kara sings, finger still pointing at Lena. “See! NYSNC, so direct! Perfect song.” She smiles, feeling as though she’s won the argument.
Lena just smiles, takes a sip of her wine, “You’re not wrong.”
Kara beams, “One Danvers, Zero Luthor.”
“If this is going to be a competition, you won’t like it.” Kara huffs in feigned annoyance. She stands up from her seat and hobbles over to Lena’s open kitchen, picks at the potstickers that Lena had delivered. She picks one up and throws it in her mouth before spinning around and shrugging at Lena.
“And anyway, I think every generation feels that way. Wants for the nostalgia they grew up with. NYSNC, Britney, they got us through our stupid loves, our first loves.” Kara nods, in agreement with the Luthor.
What Lena doesn’t know is, they were the first Earth songs Kara heard. She learned English in her bedroom in Midvale beside Alex. Feeling the beat of the music, the sadness of those songs and sang along with a foreign tongue. She wants Lena to know these things.
They had watched one of those, “Where They Are Now: 90s Pop” Edition for nearly two hours before Lena had just mumbled that “who cares anyway?” and Kara began her argument that, “everyone should care, Lena!”
She takes in the large Penthouse apartment, open floor plan, the exposed brick, and the light grey walls. Lena watches intently as Kara absorbs her space, nervous for any judgment.
Kara’s eyes stumble over the bookshelves that separate Lena’s living room from her bedroom, almost skipping over to run her fingers along the spines of them. The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, A Brief History of Time, The Universe in a Nutshell, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality, Robotics, Collapse, The Sixth Extinction , her fingers trail onwards.
“I bought most of those in college, couldn’t part with them when I left.” Lena shrugs as if trying to separate herself from the idea that she is sentimental. But Kara knows as she reads over the titles that Lena, in her home and her own space, very much in contrast with the clinical cleanliness that is her office at LCorp, is indeed sentimental.
“What was college like?” Kara asks, suddenly imaging a younger Lena, a Lena from just five or six years ago. Kara wonders what instances in the woman’s life brought her here to this moment.
Lena runs her fingers over the cushion on her lap, tracing the seam before biting her lip and tucking her feet underneath her comfortably. “It was normal. I got into MIT, Stanford, Oxford, but I ultimately chose MIT. I wanted to explore every aspect of science. I wanted to study physics and engineering. Figure out how to help people.”
Kara’s turned herself around, leaning against the bookshelf. She gestures for Lena to continue.
“I was a scientist, in the R&D department of LutherCorp before I became CEO.” Kara nods, having already known that due to her research on Lena for the articles she’s written for CatCo.
“Right, of course, you know that.” Lena laughs, “I was on a robotics team at MIT. In boarding school, I had dabbled, got myself into a bit of trouble.” There’s a twinkle in her eye as she speaks.
“I was curious. Lionel was always encouraging of that. I could be curious, search for answers and ask questions. I think that’s why I was sent to school as a child anyways. Lionel wanted me to find answers, but Lillian couldn’t stand it. She hated when I would run around Lex, asking questions all day long. I think she saw me as a distraction to him. When he left for college I was sent to school.” Lena shrugs pushes the memory back down, tries not to allow the emotions that usually follow.
“Anyways, I loved boarding school, but I was excited for college because I wanted to be able to push the envelope, not just learn theory. I wanted to experiment, to build better prosthetics for amputees, or find a way to alleviate climate change.” Kara leaps over the back of the sofa, settles back into her seat across from Lena and smiles, encouragingly.
“I didn’t get terribly close to anyone, the Luthor name was a curse even then, before...” she trails off.
“I spent a lot of my time reading and reading,” she points back at the bookshelves. “I ended up graduating in three years - loved Cambridge and Boston and then I went to some labs outside of LuthorCorp. I met Jack then.” A sad smile appears on her face then. Kara doesn’t push on who Jack is. “What about you?”
Kara placed her elbow on the back of the sofa, her fist under her chin in thinking pose. “I went to National City University. I majored in English, with a minor in women studies.” Kara doesn’t say much more, doesn’t know what to say, really. Her time in school was set to be mundane, to be average. She could never excel. “But your robot club sounds much more fun than my stories!” Kara continues, poking at Lena’s leg. Easing the tension she’s certain they both feel.
“Oh no, Miss Danvers, you will not be getting any scandalous stories out of me.” Lena winks at Kara and laughs as the blonde blushes. She ignores the way Lena’s heart speeds up.
“But Lena! Best friends get access to everything don’t they?!” Kara shouts out, delighted when Lena throws her head back in a laugh.
“I’m not sure, but I’ve become rather good at contracts. We could draw one up that says, “Kara Danvers is to have zero information on Lena Luthor prior to her time in National City.” And Kara glares in mock anger at Lena’s suggestion, but it only further encourages the raven-haired woman’s laughs.
The thing is, Kara wants to know everything. She wants to know every piece of Lena Luthor, to read her like a book. Beyond that, most terrifyingly, she wants Lena to know everything.
Everything goes to shit.
Lena’s caught in the crossfire that is CADMUS and the Medusa virus. She does her damn best, the only way she knows how to, to rely on herself, her own intelligence, her own brain.
Supergirl comes to her office in a flurry, after Kara Danvers, her best friend, one of the only people she trusts, does a ‘fluff’ piece on Mother’s of powerful women.
Lena understands now that Supergirl was right, and that Kara was likely investigating for National City’s hero. This understanding that she has, for all actions taken during these past few days, doesn’t negate or invalidate the feeling of hopelessness she feels.
Hopeless because it’s another reason her last name is tainted, a reason for no one to trust her. The young CEO had known that her only course of action was to trust herself, take the isotopes, render the virus inert. If she hadn’t Cadmus and Lillian would’ve found a way to them regardless. She had to set it off, had to play a role. She had to remove the possibility of the virus ever being in play in the future.
Her justification, right in the end, doesn’t erase the look on Supergirl’s face when Lena launched the virus. It’s too much. She feels too much, too much emotion, too much guilt.
She feels like she loses another family member that day. Lillian never acted like her mother, never treated her like a daughter, but she was ‘family’ and the last familial tie that Lena could hold onto. With Lionel gone and Lex gone mad, she had only wanted an amicable relationship with Lillian. She had set out to make LCorp inherently good, inherently just, to keep her mother at arms length, but to make something new of herself in National City.
This is grief.
A sob releases itself from her throat as it sinks in. Nothing is new, she is still a Luthor, she is surrounded by darkness, and, as she sinks into her mattress, one last thought settles in her mind as she closes her eyes and wills the tears to stop, the thinking to still.
She is alone.
Kara doesn’t come by her office for weeks. Lena keeps her news alerts on for CatCo. Has since the younger reporter stepped foot into her office that second time.
Kara texts her, Lena assumes in her quiet moments. She sends short messages, little blurbs throughout the weeks, but she doesn’t offer to stop by, doesn’t reach out for lunch, doesn’t invite her over for their usual movie nights.
She knows that Kara is busy, reporting on the Alien Fighting Ring and helping the NCP with their investigations. She knows that the Guardian is probably the center of news right now, imagines the bullpen alive with energy and Kara chasing down as many leads as she can.
It doesn’t mask the hurt though. She uses that energy, the disappointed feeling that settles in her chest, the abandonment issues she swore she was over when she did therapy back in college, she pushes them into her testimony against her mother.
It’s painful, so raw, and it leaves her feeling exposed. It leaves her feeling much like she did after she testified against Lex. Lena desperately wishes she could crawl out of her own skin, settle into a new one, run away for a little while.
She’s been CEO for a little over a year now, clawing her way into the good graces of the board, fending off misogynistic businessmen, renaming LCorp, but she knows now, more than she did when Lex was sent away, that she will be paying for the sins of her mother and brother for decades to come.
She’s shaken from her thoughts as Jess walks in with Kara behind her, donuts in hand. Kara says she’s here as a friend, and Lena allows the moment to wash over her.
It’s Kara’s advice that pushes her to go see her mother, to try and close a door and receive closure. It’s Kara she trusts.