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Alex stands in the expansive hallway of an apartment building that is way out of her pay grade, even considering the pay raise she had gotten when she was promoted to DEO Director.
She raises her hand to knock on the door.
Then she drops it.
Should she be here?
Is she even close enough friends with Lena, that it’s not going to be weird for her to check on her?
Maybe not.
But, Kara is halfway around the world dealing with her Russian counterpart.
And even if she and Lena aren’t super close, someone tried to kill her sort of friend today, again. Not to mention, she knows Lena well enough to know that even though she promised she would have the cut that she got on her arm during the scuffle checked out, that she most definitely did not, and is probably just treating it with a bottle of top-shelf scotch.
Which is really appealing.
Not to mention, before Kara ‘up, up, and awayed’ she made Alex promise that she would check on Lena.
How the hell did she end up getting talking into babysitting her little sister’s girl crush?
Alex takes a deep breath and bites the bullet. She raps on the door three quick times.
She counts to ten.
No one answers.
She doesn’t hear any movement on the other side of the door.
She raises her fist and raps on the door 3 more times, a little harder this time.
She stands silently for about 10 more seconds. Just when she’s about to pull out her phone and try to decide if she’s going to try and track Lena, she hears some movement. Someone tripping maybe. Definitely, someone tripping as she can her Lena whisper-shout a soft ‘Fuck!’.
She waits another couple of seconds.
‘Lena!’ She shouts through the door. ‘I know you’re in there. I heard you cuss.’
‘Fine. I’m coming.’ She hears Lena yell through the door and moments later the door swings half open.
She is hiding the left side of her body behind the door.
So Alex was right. Lena definitely had not had the cut checked out.
‘Alex!’ Lena says as she slips on the fakest smile Alex has ever seen. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Oh, not a lot.’ Alex says, ‘Just thought I’d drop by and say hey.’
‘Kara made you promise to come check up on me, huh?’
‘Uhmmmm.’ Alex thinks about trying to deny it. But before she continues Lena speaks up.
‘So that’s a yes.’ Lena says.
‘Yup.’
‘Well. You checked on me. I’m here. I’m fine. You don’t have to stick around.’ Lena says, moving to push the door shut.
Alex almost lets her.
But instead, she thrusts her hand out, using her DEO muscle to stop Lena from shutting the door.
‘Nope, I’m not going.’ Alex says. And then she lifts the bag slung over her shoulder. ‘Plus, I brought my medical kit to check out your arm.’
‘Oh that. I already had it checked out. It’s fine. You can seriously go.’ Lena tries again, but when she gives the door a gentle shove, it is proved fruitless as Alex is still holding it open with her hand.
‘No, you didn’t.’ Alex says.
‘How do you know that?’ Lena asks.
‘You’re hiding your arm behind the door.’ Lena looks down at Alex’s explanation.
‘Oh. I guess you’re right.’ Lena says it with a little laugh, and that’s when Alex notices. Lena is definitely a little drunk.
‘Alright superstar,’ Alex starts. ‘Are you going to let me in or what?’
‘Fine,’ Lena relents and swings the door open.
And oh, that’s a lot of blood soaking through the sleeve of Lena’s sweater on her bicep.
‘So you didn’t do anything about your arm at all, I see.’ Alex says, trying to be casual.
‘I don’t know what to tell you Alex. I’ve kind of had a stressful day.’ Lena starts. ‘You know, my brother trying to kill me, again, finding out my best friend is an alien, finding out that I accidentally split said best friend in half with a rock that I was dicking around with from her home planet, finding out that my best friend’s other half has been lowkey stalking me, I’ve been a little busy thinking about all of that, wasn’t really too worried about the blood.’
Alex looks over Lena’s shoulder and sees a bottle of Scotch on the counter, mostly empty.
‘Lena was that bottle new today.’ She asks gesturing at it.
‘Oh no.’ Lena responds. ‘I’m not that productive. It was half full.’
That’s better, not much better, but better none the less, Alex thinks.
‘Alright kiddo, let’s see that arm.’ Alex says leading Lena over to her counter and sitting her down. ‘Take the sweater off.’
And Lena does.
And oh, Alex was not expecting that.
Lena is just wearing a bra under it.
This is fine.
Alex is just a lesbian, but that doesn’t mean she can’t be professional.
And her cheeks definitely are not flaming red.
She sets her medical kit on the counter and opens it up. She pulls out some gauze pads, a suture kit, a vial of lidocaine, and a syringe.
‘Nope.’ Lena all but shouts.
Alex looks up and sees Lena jumping off of the stool and making her way across the room.
‘What’s wrong superstar?’ Alex asks, and then looks down at her set up, and sees the syringe and needle. ‘Oh, you don’t do needles, huh?’
‘No, I most certainly do not.’ Lena says. ‘Anyway, you can do this without that?’
‘Depends, you think you can handle being stabbed like 29 times?’ Alex replied.
‘Oh.’ Is all Lena says.
Alex tries to think of something to distract Lean with. And that’s when she comes up with it. She pulls out her phone and starts to swipe through her videos.
‘You know what the chubby bunny challenge is?’ She asks.
Lena looks at her with confusion.
‘It’s when you stuff marshmallows in your mouth and say chubby bunny with each new mallow.’ Alex explains. ‘I have a video of Kara doing it.’
Lena’s face lights up.
‘Gimme.’ Lena says and makes grabby hands at Alex’s phone as she comes back across the room and settles back on the stool she had vacated.
Alex queues up the video and hands it over.
As Lena watches the video, Alex makes quick work of the lidocaine and the suture kit.
As she stitches Lena up, she glances up to make sure she’s still distracted by the video. Apparently, she wasn’t paying much attention to what Lena was doing, because the video was over, and Lena was paging through the other video’s she had saved of her sister.
‘Is she bench pressing a Humvee in this video?’ Lena asks Alex with wide eyes.
‘Oh, yeah, keep watching it. She ends up balancing it on her pointer finger at the end.’ Lena’s eyes get wide and she looks back down at the phone.
Alex finishes up the stitches and wraps Lena’s arm with a bandage.
‘Do you have an Apple TV?’ Alex asks and Lena nods, ‘I could show you other Kara videos if you want.’
‘Yes, please.’ Lena says and leads her to the living room where there is a giant tv and a sectional couch that may as well be a king sized bed with how deep it is.
They settle into the cushions and Alex starts to play one video after another. Explaining the goofy antics that Kara had gotten them into. There are the videos of Kara demolishing one food challenge after another on the cross country road trip they took last summer. A series of videos that feature Alex throwing herself off of great heights, everything from bridges to buildings, and Kara catching her every time. There are at least 6 different videos of Kara pretending to a food critic as she samples weird ice cream flavors. Lena laughs delightedly at every video.
Before Alex knows it, her lap is full of Lena’s head and she is carding her fingers through the younger girl’s hair.
That’s when it hits Alex, it’s kind of nice to play big sister to someone who isn’t nearly invincible.
After playing 4 different videos showcasing Kara, at DisneyWorld, fawning over princesses, Alex looks down and sure enough, Lena has fallen asleep.
Alex grabs the remote that Lena had left on the couch next to them and switches the tv to Netflix, settling in on a documentary about conspiracy theories.
A few hours later, when Alex feels her self nodding off, she is shaken awake by her phone vibrating on her chest. She picks it up and see’s that it’s Kara.
‘Hey, Sis, what’s up?’ Alex asks answering the call.
‘I just got home. Wanted to see if you checked in on Lena.’
‘Sure did. I’m still over here.’ Alex tells her.
‘Oh good. Is she okay?’ Kara asks.
‘She is now. Passed out cold after watching approximately 72 different videos featuring you.’ Alex tells her.
‘Oh cool. Um, did you talk about the Supergirl thing at all?’ Kara asks.
‘Not really. I mean she said something about it. But she was pretty drunk when I got here. And upset. I stitched up her arm and distracted her.’ Alex tells her. ‘I think you should come over here. Be here when she wakes up.’
‘Okay, I’ll be there shortly.’ And Kara and hangs up the phone.
Alex looks down at the screen. ‘Rude.’ She whispers at it, in reference to Kara hanging up, but before she even gets her phone set back down, she sees movement on the balcony. Apparently, by shortly Kara meant, .03 seconds.
Her little sister lets herself in, and when the door opens, Lena rouses from her sleep. She sits up and see’s Kara walking into the living room.
‘You came home.’ Lena says in a sleep-ridden slur. And like she did with Alex’s phone a couple hours earlier, she makes grabby hands for Kara. Who of course obliges and is at Lena’s side in mere moments.
‘Of course, I did. Was worried about you.’ Kara says as she suddenly has her arms full of Luthor.
With that, Alex decides maybe it’s time to take her leave, and moves to stand up.
But, before she can get even a step away, she is being pulled back down to the couch by Lena who has wrapped her hand around Alex’s wrist.
‘Don’t go.’ Lena says in a haze. ‘Want to have the best Lex here in the morning too.’
Alex decided there is no saying no to that and settles back on the couch. Next to Kara, who has Lena cradled in her lap.
She would leave, but Lena’s moved her hand from Alex’s wrist and has laced their fingers together.
Her back is going to hate her for this in the morning.