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Lena was no stranger to day drinking. She had become accustomed to sipping scotch to close deals at lunch since she was sixteen and her father poured her drinks to make her feel like she had a say in their discussion over colleges. It had burned her throat at first, but she didn’t let it show under Lionel’s sharp gaze. Lex had turned twenty-five that year; he had been drinking for almost a decade and was delighted to finally be allowed to turn Lena into a scotch snob. Just one glass of liquor would make her feel fuzzy and dizzy at the time. She would clench her lips and try not to embarrass herself while her father and brother talked easily over drinks. The first time she threw up from drinking, it was at four in the afternoon with Lex standing over her in the door to the bathroom. He didn’t hold her hair back; Lena had to shampoo twice to get it fully clean.
Now, it took a hell of a lot more to get her drunk. Drinking and working, drinking at work or working over drinks, was not some talent she wasn’t born with. It was a skill Lena had cultivated. The scotch soothed the pounding in her head without making it spin. At least, the first glass did. By the time she poured her fourth, she had to face the fact that she was likely done working for the day, though it was hardly three o’clock.
The thought infuriated her. Not as much as the photo before her, and the unstable heat of alcohol in her blood. She slammed the cup down on her desk, on the glass of the picture frame. It broke her heart when the frame shattered instead of the intricate bottom of her glass.
Oh Kara. Lena loved her, and she hated her. And she should have known. Kara was Supergirl.
Through the cracked glass, Lena could still see Kara’s smile in the photo, with Lena grinning besides her. That face was Supergirl, the expression was Kara. Maybe it was the other way around.
She should have known. Of course Kara was Supergirl. In a drunken, melancholy whirlwind, Lena recalled stammered excuses and Kara running out of the room just before Supergirl appeared. She wasn’t a good liar; Lena was a good liar, yet she couldn’t see the massive farce that had been in front of her like a neon sign for years. Her best friend, her girlfriend, was Supergirl.
They had kissed for the first time about a month before. Kara’s hands had been soft and warm—as Lena had known them to be—on the sharp line of Lena’s jaw and her lips had felt the same. That was the best word for kara: soft. All of her mannerisms, all of her expressions, all of the care she wrapped around Lena. Of course that was all an act. In retrospect, Lena could see the air of restraint in all of their touches.
Kara had asked to take it slow. Meaning that they hadn’t slept together. They would kiss and those gentle hands would rake through Lena’s hair, sending sparks down from her scalp. Kara would hold her, brush her lips against the pulse point on Lena’s neck, or Lena would wrap her arms around Kara’s waist. But they never went that far; Kara would break off heavy kisses with a blush. She was holding back. Holding back from Lena or holding back for her.
Memories played in her head side by side. Kara putting on an act of innocence, duping Lena into trusting her, lying to her face. Lying badly, using Lena’s feelings to sell her makeshift stories. The nights Lena would lay awake worrying about this kind, beautiful, gentle woman into her life of corporate slimeballs and slander and a murderous family. Kara hadn’t had the integrity to tell her that Lena needn’t worry that her life would be threatened by gun-toting assassins or a bomb nicknamed corporate sabotage.
At the same time, she could remember nights when Kara was gentle for her. Lena had cried into Kara’s shoulder more than she’d cried in front of her own family. And she had let her. She had protected Lena as Supergirl and Kara Danvers, with a cape and with the genuine empathy in her blue, blue eyes.
It had seemed genuine, at least. Kara’s sharp gaze, which had pierced Lena so many times in so many ways, could kill. And Kara had kept a secret.
The plane ride jumped into her head, which was still as warm as an exploding engine from the scotch. The way back from Kaznia. “It wouldn’t have.”
If Lena had turned to look at Kara, found the strength through her own tears, would Kara have told her the truth?
The thought filled her with another type of warmth. She wanted to trust Kara. Kara, who had been there for her. Kara, who ventured out in a cape and a persona and saved hundreds of lives and then got up the next morning and did as much good with her writing. Kara, who was sweet and empathetic and decent. Kara, who wanted to tell her the most important, dangerous secret in her life.
She wanted to trust the woman she was in love with.
But that woman was like everybody in her life—her mother, her brother. Kara may have almost told her, but it was too little, too late.
Another secret. Another lie.
She wanted to trust Kara. She wanted to forgive her. She wanted to put her love, her faith, her weakness in Kara’s soft, strong hands.
Kara, the woman who lied to her for years.
From the picture, Lena lifted the glass and drained it. A piece of glass broke free from the frame, sticking to the bottom of the glass for a moment before falling back to the table, breaking a little more.
There had never really been consequences for breaking things. Lena could break whatever she wanted, on accident or on purpose, and her family could buy a replacement. Lionel had broken things when he was angry (and often drunk). Lex had followed his example, spending his teen years shouting and shattering when the mood struck him. Lena had picked up the habit. No matter how her mother tried to dissuade her from the unladylike activity, she would throw glasses or knock lamps off of tables during childhood fits. To the Luthor family, mild destruction was a minor offense, so Lena never got more than a brief reprimand and a withering glare from her mother. Things she was used to.
The real punishment came for other offenses. Greater offenses. When Lena moved out to her fancy boarding school in Scotland, she made an effort to police her own destruction. She would be a maker, not a breaker. Still, old habits die hard.
Looking at the broken picture frame, it felt like a consequence. The picture lived in her office, one of her only personal possessions in the cool, detached space. It watched over her, brought her strength during long days and nights pouring over budget reports and tedious meetings. Supergirl watched over her; she would stop in sometimes.
And now it was broken. It seemed Kara was no longer watching over her.