Work Text:
Boxes
Sleeping was one of the few things she could do while locked within the cocoon-like suit that was keeping her alive. Alex was refusing to let her even leave the room, and she couldn’t stand just sitting there and staring at the walls. Staring, but not really seeing - not with her own eyes. So she tried to meditate, closing her eyes and willing sleep to take over. She’d been away for almost twenty hours, mind swirling in an effort to understand and accept her current situation, so sleep was actually nearer at hand than she expected.
The problem with sleeping was that inevitably, she had to wake up.
When she woke, the first thing that met her was darkness, the helmet’s screen taking a moment to register her eye movements and flash on, bringing a grey-tinted world into view. That was followed by quick, panicky breaths as she registered the filtered air, the tightness around her limbs, the hollow sound of her own blood roaring in her ears. She jolted upright, clumsy still as metal and polymer and synthetic materials hindered the naturally graceful flow of her movements.
“It’s just the suit, it’s just the suit,” she muttered to herself.
The closed-in feeling was almost unbearable, and she didn’t know how long she could live in such a state. She’d been told that Lena and Brainy were working hard, and she had been told the suit could keep her alive for as long as it took. But being alive and living were two different things.
She wished she could pinch herself but the suit prevented not only contact with the outside world, but contact with herself. It was claustrophobic and suffocating and she kept flexing her hands around the edge of the table, feeling that at least it was solid and real. She wasn’t in her pod. She wasn’t in the Phantom Zone. She was on Earth and had been for thirteen years. Her memories were not dreams. Alex would be back in to see her soon, she was sure.
But a long while later, it wasn’t Alex who entered the room as the door whooshed open.
+++++
In one of the DEO labs, all that could be heard was the furious clicking and clacking of a keyboard. Lena was hunched over, exhaustion weighing down her shoulders, but her mind was still alert and active as she typed in calculations and ran simulations. She felt no closer to a solution but refused to slow down. Since Alex had called her after Supergirl’s aborted attempt to resume heroics, she’d felt a new sense of urgency. She knew that the suit could keep her alive indefinitely, with the help if intravenous nutrition through specialized built-in ports. But it couldn’t keep her alive and withstand an assault, and it was only a matter of time before the superhero’s need to protect others pushed her to put her own life in danger.
She almost missed the soft but steady beeping that began to emanate from a laptop to her right. Startled, she looked over, straightening immediately and scanning the information scrolling past. It was a direct link to Supergirl’s suit and it was currently telling her that the woman’s heartrate and blood-pressure were rising alarmingly high, and alarmingly quickly. Grabbing the laptop and slamming it closed, she stood up, chair rolling away at the force of her actions. She glanced around quickly, looking for Alex or Brainy or any other familiar face, but seeing none through the glass walls, she took off for the elevator alone.
Lena rushed out of the elevator and down the long, wide hallway, brushing past DEO agents and cracking the laptop open so that she could check the read-outs. What she saw made her move faster.
“Supergirl!” She called out as she tapped in the access code and entered, skidding to a stop when the woman wasn’t lying on the table in the middle of the room.
She looked around frantically, quickly spotting Supergirl crouched in the far corner, hands digging grooves into the cement floor. There was no hesitation before Lena was down on the floor kneeling in front of her.
“Supergirl?” she tried to get her attention. “Supergirl, what’s going on? What’s wrong? Are you feeling the effects of kryptonite?”
Kara just shook her head, and Lena wished she could see her face, see those blue eyes, instead of staring into a black void that mirrored her own features.
“Too close,” Kara murmured.
“Too close?” Lena repeated, backing up.
“No!” Kara reached for her, gripping her wrist just a fraction too hard. “Everything is too close. I can’t breathe, Lena. I can’t feel anything. I wake up back in the Phantom Zone.”
“The Phantom Zone?” Lena questioned, easing Kara’s fingers down to her hand.
Kara leaned her head into the corner, still breathing heavily. “I came here in a pod, that left Krypton the same time as Superman’s, but mine was caught in the Phantom Zone for twenty-four years. Time doesn’t pass there. It’s just like being trapped in a nightmare that doesn’t end.”
“Oh my God, I had no idea,” Lena whispered. “You are not back there. You are not alone, and you are not going to be in that suit forever.”
She squeezed Kara’s hand, hating that something she had invented was once again causing pain to someone she cared about.
“Come on. Let’s get you off the floor. I’ll go find Alex and she can talk to you. Help you center.”
Kara shook her head again. “No, please,” she whispered. “Stay. I know you don’t - I know we aren’t - friends,” she forced out, “but...”
“Kara, stop. We are friends. We will always be friends.”
Behind the mask, Kara’s eyes widened and she wished she could meet Lena’s gaze directly.
“Lena?”
The dark haired woman let out a long breath before speaking. “A little while ago, I told someone how to work through their emotions. About how I take them and put them in little boxes and push them way down inside until they don’t hurt me anymore.” She sighed and looked away, staring at the floor. “That’s what I did with Supergirl and with Kara. I put my feelings for each of them in separate boxes and I never let those boxes mix. I knew from the first day you walked into my office, but of course I didn’t expect you to tell me right away. Then time went on, and you still didn’t tell me, but I’d already boxed those feelings up, and I was happy just having you-Kara, even if you wouldn’t tell me about you-Supergirl.”
“I never wanted to keep it from you, Lena, but there just never seemed to be a way to bring it up, and then I was selfish. I liked having you as my friend. Not expecting me to be a hero, just expecting to be a friend. I couldn’t let that go...”
Lena nodded. “It hurt. It still hurts. But I understand. I couldn’t lose you either, and that’s why I put my anger at Supergirl into a box that was far away from how I feel about Kara Danvers.”
“And now?” Kara asked, reluctantly.
“Now I just feel horrible that you’ve been hurt by something I made and that the thing I made to help you is just causing you more pain.”
“None of that is your fault,” Kara said, “and having you here definitely helps. I feel more grounded with you holding my hand.”
“Well I’m not going anywhere, Kara. I’ll stay right here beside you until you finish calming down, and then you will come up to the lab with me and I will fix all of this and get you out of that damn suit.”
“Thank you, Lena.” Kara forced back tears knowing that she would have no way of wiping them away. “I’ve said before that I believe in you, and I always will.