Work Text:
Alex Danvers would like to think she’s a somewhat reasonable human being.
And yet, she’ll admit, as she takes her seat in Kelly’s office upon a wooden chair just adjacent to the plush leather armchair and cream-colored sofa currently inhabited by an anxious Kara and a distinctly unamused Lena Luthor, she’s starting to think that maybe, just maybe, she should have called in beforehand with an entirely made-up excuse about four-eyed aliens running amok at the D.E.O. (or something of the like), because, by the looks of Lena’s ramrod-straight posture and Kara’s palpable nervous energy as she rapidly taps one foot at a nearly inhuman pace (not even to mention the inanely tense silence blanketing the room), Alex thinks the whole situation is something remarkably akin to a ticking time bomb that's just waiting to go off and blow them all sky-high.
Kelly jumps in, then (thank God) with an all-too-cheerful, “Okay, I’m glad everyone could make it. And, really, thank you guys for being here,” a bright smile on her gorgeous features, round chocolate-brown eyes alight with enthusiasm as she turns to eye them all meaningfully in turn (though Alex certainly doesn’t miss the way her gaze lingers upon yours truly).
Lena (impeccably-dressed as ever) merely stares icily back at the woman, clearly unimpressed, whilst Kara gapes dumbly in a singularly uncanny impression of a gutted fish—but, Kelly’s sunny demeanor doesn’t waver, and, for that, Alex thinks that Kelly is probably one of the most impressive women she’s ever met.
“And, as I said,” Kelly continues swiftly without missing a single beat, “I’ve asked Alex to join us today, especially because I know that she and Lena have been working more closely together over the past couple of months, and I think that this relationship is an important one to monitor, as well. Would you agree?” she questions smartly, looking between a stock-still Lena and a blank-faced Alex.
When Lena doesn’t make a single move to respond, Alex purses her lips before letting out an awkward cough, begrudgingly resigning herself to the fact that she’s most definitely going to have to be the one to break the immersive quiet.
“Uh… Yes,” she replies lamely, but Kelly simply nods in a gesture of apparent understanding, as if Alex had just said something remarkably profound.
“Thank you, Alex,” she relates, and Alex blinks owlishly, because, What?—but, a moment later, and she’s turning right back to fix a stoic Lena with an empathetic gaze, and Alex doesn’t bother to think all that much further on it, because, by the guarded look in Lena’s emerald-green eyes, she can’t imagine Kelly’s going to succeed in getting much (if anything) out of her. “And, would you agree, Lena?”
Lena quirks a single immaculately-manicured brow, giving the slightest tilt of her head in a show of acknowledgement.
“Yes, I would,” she answers with an obvious air of cold indifference, and Alex resists the urge to sigh, all the while taking a brief moment to curse herself at not having the foresight to see this quote-unquote “therapy session” for the train-wreck that it was from the very start.
“Great!” Kelly exclaims, and Alex thinks that she’s being far too optimistic for how rapidly this (whatever this is) is declining. “So, Lena, would you say that your relationship with Alex has changed since you found out Kara’s identity?”
“Given that we don’t have anything beyond a strained work relationship, I don’t believe that it has,” Lena insinuates without a moment’s hesitation, and Alex can’t prevent the quiet scoff that subsequently escapes her, something she instantly regrets as everyone (including a positively murderous-looking Lena Luthor) turns to stare at her in response.
Eventually, Alex lets out a long exhale, inwardly chastising herself for being so rash—but, she knows there’s really no taking it back now: “That’s bullshit, Lena, and you know it.”
A dangerous fire blazes in Lena's unrelenting green-eyed gaze, and Alex resists the urge to shiver as it threatens to burn through her entirely. “Excuse me?”
“When Colonel Haley took control of the D.E.O., I told you I trusted you—"
“And, yet, you lied,” Lena interjects coolly, a single brow raised, the fire in her eyes fading—if only slightly—in favor of a detached kind of mirth that glimmers ephemerally within deep verdant green. (Alex can’t decide if that’s an improvement, or just the opposite.) “How exquisitely ironic.”
“No,” Alex objects angrily. “I didn’t.”
“Another lie,” Lena quips adroitly, then lets out a rather theatric sigh. “Really, I don’t know why I bother—"
“It wasn’t my secret to tell!” Alex argues vehemently then, cheeks heating with annoyance. “And, besides, it’s not like it’d have made a difference—"
“Are you really trying to tell me things wouldn’t have changed if one of you,” Lena shoots an angry glare towards Kara before promptly returning it back to Alex, “had just bloody told me what was happening? Are you really that daft?”
Kara frowns and starts at that, squirming awkwardly around to fish her phone out of her pocket—which, What?
“Kara,” Alex barks, and Kara’s entire body jolts with a high-pitched yelp, the blonde nearly dropping her phone in the process. “What the hell are you doing?”
An embarrassed flush takes over Kara’s abashed features, and Alex fights the urge to roll her eyes—Lena’s glaring daggers, too, from the other end of the couch (though, she supposes it’s a small comfort that Kara’s wholly unable to witness that with her back to Lena and her attentions currently upon Alex), whilst Kelly just leans slightly forward in her seat, looking vaguely intrigued.
“I was, um… I was about to do a-a Google search,” Kara mumbles, her cheeks glowing red, phone more or less forgotten in her grip.
Lena pinches the bridge of her nose, exhaling frustratedly. “And what on Earth could you possibly be wanting to Google right now, Kara?” Lena inquires, her tone dripping with impatience. “You’d do well to remember that this was not my idea—"
“IwasGooglingwhatdaftmeant,” Kara rushes out in an unintelligible jumble of words, her blush reaching the tips of her ears, her body slowly shrinking further and further into the cushions as if trying to disappear from sight entirely.
Alex squints. “What?”
“I was, um,” Kara pauses, left jean-clad leg bouncing rapidly up and down with nervous energy. “I was… Googling what ‘daft’ meant.”
Lena merely gapes for a second or two, before her eyelids flutter shut and she laments, “Oh, for the love of G—"
“Well, then!” Kelly interrupts brightly, flashing all of them a radiant smile (even if she doesn’t get anything that even somewhat resembles her blatant enthusiasm in response, because Lena is slumped in her seat and rubbing exhaustedly at her temples with furrowed brows, Kara is still darting bright-blue eyes between the phone in her hand and Lena and Alex like one of them might tell her what the hell she’s supposed to be doing at the current moment, and Alex is shooting a deadly glare Kara’s way in some last-ditch attempt to make her super-powered sister stop floundering and staring and gawking at the rest of them like a lost child in a big-city department store). “I think we’ve—"
“Kara, put it away,” Alex hisses after a moment, feeling a resultant twinge of guilt for so abruptly cutting Kelly off as Kara’s head snaps up to meet Alex’s gaze with an utterly bewildered expression upon her features, phone still clutched uselessly in her hand. “Now."
Kara’s frown only deepens. “But I haven’t Googled what it—"
Kara stops herself as Alex promptly lunges forward in her seat to grab the phone from Kara's loose grip, gripping it in two hands—and, before she can think any better of it, she’s snapping the sleek (but pitifully thin) device in two, remaining dutifully oblivious to the stares of a scandalized Kara and a marginally bemused Lena as she does so.
“Alex!” Kara protests indignantly, even as Lena’s smirk widens and Kelly lets out an audible gasp.
“You’re… You’re so strong,” Kelly observes slowly, an awed and almost hungry look on her elegant features as she silently appraises Alex, and Alex thinks she’s never wanted to kiss someone so badly in her entire life.
(It also makes the minuscule shards of glass from the touchscreen currently pinching at the skin of her palms something of a non-issue, because Alex can deal with that later—but, right now, Kelly is wearing an adorable expression of shock and letting out tiny strained puffs of air in between every breath and looking at Alex like that with wide brown eyes that sparkle beautifully even in the harsh lighting of her office, and, God, Alex wants her.)
Kara, meanwhile, is now looking hurriedly back and forth between the two of them, slack-jawed and wide-eyed (though neither Kelly nor Alex break their increasingly intense staring match to acknowledge her), and, out of the corner of her vision, Alex can glimpse her little sister’s expression, one caught somewhere between astonished and dismayed.
(It’s quite entertaining, really.)
Kara sputters. “Wait, are you—I—You guys did—You two are—"
“Yes, darling, they’re together,” Lena interjects flatly with a half-hearted roll of her eyes. “Or, did you not notice how persistently they’ve been eye-fucking one another all throughout the session?”
Kara’s eyes bulge comically wide at that, strangled noises escaping her that might have aroused some degree of worry had they not been coming from an invulnerable Kryptonian, and Alex reluctantly tears her gaze away from Kelly to glare at an entirely unapologetic Lena Luthor, feeling a warm and angry flush coloring her cheeks all the while.
“What’s your problem?” she snaps shortly, the two pieces of Kara’s broken phone still clutched tightly in her white-knuckled grip, tiny glass fragments needling into the fleshy skin of her palms until she’s sure she’s bleeding.
Lena shrugs, red-painted lips tugging upwards into a smirk even as a red-faced Kara heaves desperately for air beside her. “It’s merely an observation, Agent Danvers.”
Alex sees red. “Oh, is that right?” she challenges, then moves on quickly even as Lena’s mouth opens in an attempt to speak, determined not to allow room for a response: “Well, what a coincidence, because, boy, do I have an ‘observation' for you—"
“Alex, maybe you should—"
“No, please,” Lena interjects with a single strategically-placed hand atop Kara’s knee, which immediately (pathetically) has the blonde's jaw snapping shut and the flush in her cheeks deepening tenfold—Lena, meanwhile, leans forward in her seat, fixing Alex with a pouting (read: infuriating) look of feigned interest. “I would just love to hear whatever it is the oh-so-honorable Alex Danvers has to say ab—"
“You know what, Luthor? Has anyone ever told you that you’re kind of—"
“Guys!” Kara yelps, effectively stopping Alex mid-thought as both she and Lena turn their furious glowers upon the blonde in question, who simply chuckles nervously and reddens even further, clearly at a loss as to what she should be doing now that she has their attention.
“What, Kara?” Alex huffs after a prolonged silence, impatience rising in her gut.
“I, um… " Kara trails off, looking between Alex and Kelly and Lena before eventually coming to rest upon the latter of the three. “I just… You look really pretty today, Lena,” she finishes shyly (though Alex can tell she’s not lying—she’s not sure if that makes it better or worse) even as a hush settles upon the room.
…. Oh, dear.
Lena eyes widen ever-so-slightly at that, but she maintains her composure, lips pursed and hard gaze narrowing until Kara is squirming in her seat under the weight of it—Alex, meanwhile, retains a heavy sigh, though she remains entirely unwilling to break the heavy silence, even if it is Kara’s fault. (Especially since it is Kara’s fault.)
“Kelly?” Lena questions evenly (though her eyes don’t stray from a distinctly alarmed Kara), her expression unsettlingly calm.
Kelly clears her throat uncomfortably, her gaze straying momentarily to Alex before reluctantly returning back to an unyielding Lena. “Um, yes?”
“I’m feeling rather overcome with the urge to punch Kara in the face. Can I please leave now, so that I might avoid shattering all the bones in my hand by doing so?”
She hears a strangled squeak escape Kara’s throat at that, and Alex bites her lip hard in an effort to hold back a snicker.
Kelly, for her part, just blinks dazedly at Lena, lips slightly parted in shock. “I—"
“Lovely,” Lena states as she stands in place (in a skin-tight blue dress and designer heels, because of course she’d never allow herself to be seen in anything less), then bends slightly to retrieve her sleek black handbag from the carpeted floor. “Thank you, Ms. Olsen, for your time.”
And, with that, she’s gliding swiftly past a gobsmacked Kara and refusing to spare Alex a single glance on her way to the door, prying it gently open and disappearing into the halls as it shuts behind her with a soft click!
Jesus Christ.
Alex really should have just stayed home.
⟲ ⟲ ⟲ ⟲ ⟲ ⟲ ⟲ ⟲ ⟲ ⟲ ⟲ ⟲ ⟲ ⟲ ⟲ ⟲