Chapter Text
It follows her home and she doesn’t know what to do.
She knows what she wants to do. She wants to make it someone else’s problem. She wants to pretend the tiny little fur ball never even crossed her path. She wants to drop it off at the local animal shelter.
She’s not quite sure what’s stopping her.
All she knows is that the tiny little fur ball looks hungry and scared and contrary to popular belief (she frowns at the thought of her employees), she does not have an ice-cold heart. In fact, she’s warm and bubbly, thank you very much. So in an effort to prove something she feels she shouldn’t even have to prove, she sets out a bowl of milk (cats like that, don’t they?), then crouches down, waiting to see if the fur ball would go for it.
He doesn’t. If anything, he looks terribly unimpressed and vaguely annoyed by her efforts to feed him.
(She hadn’t realized cats were so…judgey.)
“You’re the one that followed me home, little man,” she tells the cat, momentarily panicking that she was indeed turning into the very thing her mother always warned her she’d become. “If anyone’s life choices are suspect, it’s yours.”
The cat just continues to stare at her, blinking slowly, and she lets out a groan. In that moment she decides two things: one, she’s going to name her unexpected guest Judge, and two, she really needs to go out and buy Judge some food.
(She’s not much of an animal person, really. But actively keeping one hungry is not on her to-do list.)
“Right. So…you stay here. I’ll go buy whatever it is cats eat. Fish?” Judge ducks his head and curls around himself, clearly disappointed in her. It’s the most passive-aggressive response she’s ever gotten in her life, and that’s including the conversations she’s had with her mother. “Look, my only experience with cats is from Tom and Jerry, okay? Just…I’ll figure it out.” He blinks in response, and she’s vaguely sure he smirks.
(Is that possible? For a cat to smirk? She needs to Google it.)
Regardless, five minutes later she finds herself out the door once more, battling her bone-deep weariness in order to save herself from Judge’s ire.
x
She appreciates the fact that the grocery store is mostly empty on a Wednesday night. No one is around to witness her mortifying indecision as she juggles staring at brands of cat food with the web pages she’s pulled up on her phone, attempting to make an informed choice. (It crosses her mind that she’s woefully ill-equipped for this; she can barely take care of herself, let alone another living thing. This was exactly why she avoided keeping plants at home, despite how much she loved them—she’d only end up killing everything in her path.)
“You have a cat? Well, I mean, of course you have a cat, you’re looking at cat food, though I guess I didn’t want to assume, but you look like you’re trying to cure cancer, and well I know a thing or two about cats, so I can help.”
(She doesn’t want to turn around and face this clearly crazy person in the middle of a grocery store on a Wednesday night. She doesn’t, she doesn’t, she doesn’t—)
(—but of course, she does.)
“That was…quite the speech,” she says, turning to the stranger and well, feeling her heart skip a beat maybe. (Just maybe. She’s had a lot of coffee today, it could’ve been a run of the mill palpitation caused by excess caffeine. It’s probably nothing to do with this crazy woman, this crazy, but oh so beautiful, woman.)
“Um, hi,” the woman says, her eyes widening behind her glasses, one hand tugging on the sleeve of her sweater. A smile appears on her face. “Hi.”
“You said that already.”
“Right. I did.” She fiddles with her glasses, clears her throat, and sticks out her hand. “Hi—I mean, I’m Kara. I can, um, help. With your problem.” Her eyes flick down, a blush rises on her cheeks, and then she looks back up. “Your cat food problem, I mean. Obviously.”
“You own a cat?” (She doesn’t know why she’s continuing this conversation with a clearly insane lady. It has nothing to do with the fact that the insane lady is pretty. None at all.)
“Well, not exactly.” Kara’s blush deepens and she actually looks away. “I’m a reporter. Well, sort of? And my last article was a puff piece on cats and cat owners. So I learned I lot.”
“You’re sort of a reporter?”
“My editor doesn’t like me, he thinks I—and I don’t know why I’m wasting your time with this!” Kara jerks forward, picking up a bag of cat food that’s on the bottom shelf. “Anyway, this is what most cat owners swear by. You should mix things up with some wet cat food too.” She points to the cans closer to the top shelf.
“Thank you, Kara,” she manages, relief coursing through her. She still thinks this woman is mad, but still. She was glad she wouldn’t be responsible for caticide (that’s not a thing, she doesn’t think) because she hadn’t been able to feed the cat that had followed her home. “I tried feeding him milk earlier, and I think he actually laughed at me.”
“Right, well, cats are lactose intolerant. Milk can give them upset stomachs.”
“Wow, you really learned a lot from your puff piece.”
Kara chuckled, shrugging. “That one I learned from experience, actually. We had a cat growing up and feeding her milk…it didn’t go well.” Kara lets out a sigh, smiles, and shrugs again. “But um, you look busy,” Kara gestures to her outfit, the tight dress and the uncomfortable heels, “so I’m going to leave you alone. So, um, bye.”
It’s a hasty farewell, and she not quite prepared for it, so all she manages is a lame “Thank you,” as she watches the (pretty) woman in the large sweater turn and push her cart ladled with ice cream and frozen pizzas towards checkout. All she gets in response is an awkward wave and red ears, which makes her smile. (She smiles not because she finds Kara adorable. It’s because she finds humor in such a strange conversation. It’s because this is a story she could tell her friends—“So there was this lady at the store who…”—if, well, she had any friends.)
She groans, hating that she always manages to ruin her own good mood.
x
“Miss Luthor…Lena,” he tries, making her bristle, “you must understand the situation you and your company are in at the moment. With Mr. Luthor’s arrest and your mother’s decision to step away from the company, the public does not trust LuthorCorp. Which means—”
“L-Corp,” she corrects, leaning back in her chair. The man—with his frazzled expression, loose-fitting suit, and scraggly white hair—nods wearily. She idly wonders why he was chosen as the executive vice president.
“Of course,” he says. “L-Corpis struggling. Before you can fix the company you must fix the company’s image.” Oh, she realizes, this is why. While the man had a tendency to see her as the little girl who used to follow her father around while he worked, he was still one of the few people who stood up to Lex and one of the few who genuinely had the company’s best interests at heart. She closes her eyes, knowing what he’s about to suggest and knowing it’s her only option. “You need to market yourself before you can market L-Corp.”
“What would you suggest? If you haven’t noticed, the press is keen to go after my name every chance they get.”
“They go after the name Luthor. You need to market yourself. There’s a reason you’re renaming the company. Show the world that the L in L-Corp stands for Lena, not Luthor.”
(It’s the first time she’s ever stared at her executive vice president and thought, hey, this guy isn’t so bad.
She doesn’t quite like how that feels.)
“Clearly you already have a plan.”
“Cat Grant is an old friend of mine,” he says, running his fingers through his hair in a futile attempt to smooth it out. “And by friend I mean she owes me a favor. Though she’s stepping away from CatCo, she still holds a degree of sway. She convinced Snapper Carr to assign one of his reporters to do a weekly piece on you. Your name sells papers, you get some good publicity. Everyone wins.”
She frowns because she’s read Snapper Carr’s articles, and besides Clark Kent, she doesn’t think anyone hates the Luthors as much, even if he does manage to sound unbiased. “How long will this arrangement last?”
“As long as it needs to, Miss Luthor.”
“Fine. I’ll work with this reporter.”
“Excellent. She’s waiting outside.”
Lena, who’d expected to at least get a few days to get used to the idea that she’d be plastered all over the papers once again (she still hasn’t gotten the bad taste of publicity out of her mouth since Lex’s trial), starts to argue, but it’s too late.
The door to her office opens and a woman with glasses and a sweater steps in.
“Oh gosh,” Kara the crazy (though pretty) woman from the grocery store says, eyes wide. “I rambled to a CEO.”
x
Judge the cat does not appreciate:
One, being woken up from naps when Lena is forced to pick him up and move him off her laptop so she can work.
Two, being locked out of Lena’s bedroom at night, meaning that Lena’s new bedmate purrs but it’s not the way she’d like it.
Three, remaining at home alone all day, compelling Lena to take him to work with her, letting him roam around her office and ignoring the looks her assistant throws her way.
(It’s not weird. At least, she doesn’t think so.
And Kara doesn’t think it’s weird either. Though she’s not entirely sure why Kara’s opinion means so much to her after only two interviews.)
“I think it’s great!” Kara says gleefully, holding out her hand for Judge, and to Lena’s astonishment, her grumpy, hates-the-world, can’t-stand-people cat surges forward, purring as Kara scratches below his jaw. “He’s never alone and you’re never alone, it’s such a good idea, more people should do it, really.” Lena’s too surprised to respond; Judge had just taken up residence on Kara’s lap, his head drooping and his eyes closing as Kara petted him.
He was such a stupid cat.
“He likes you,” Lena says, not at all jealous, except she is. He followed her home. He slept in her bed. He ate the food she bought him. His easy attachment to Kara is like…well, it’s like Lena isn’t even good enough for a cat. Which frankly, if any cat should be so lucky. Lena Luthor is fan-fucking-tastic.
“I love animals,” Kara says, grinning widely at Lena’s comment, and for the life of her, she doesn’t know why the jealousy spills away at the sight of that smile. “When I moved to National City, I thought I’d get a dog or something, but then I realized I’d be too busy to properly take care of it and it wouldn’t be fair to the dog.”
“I clock in a lot of hours and I think Judge and I are managing well. Is being a reporter really that busy?”
“Oh well, it’s not just work, it’s—” Kara cuts herself off, mouth falling open. “Oh, never mind,” she says, the stress she places on the words making it awkward. “My life is so boring, so so boring, compared to yours, Miss Luthor.”
“Lena.”
“Sorry?”
“My name. It’s Lena.”
Kara’s mouth opens and closes a few times, something about her expression making Lena’s chest feel tight. “Oh—okay then. Um, the interview.” She blinks rapidly, clearly attempting to find her train of thought. “Since the whole point of this is to humanize you and L-Corp, I was thinking we could talk about your hobbies. You know, the things you do for fun in your free time?”
“What free time?” Lena jokes, trying to stall as she desperately attempts to think of something that sounds better than I read a lot. She suddenly wishes she had taken up golf like her father had suggested so long ago. She finds she wants to impress Kara, and somehow she doesn’t think geekily admitting she likes reading up on the latest technological advancements (in essence, her competitors) and watching old Star Trekreruns would impress anyone. Say something cool, she thinks. “I have a fountain pen collection.” Not that! How is thatcool?
“A fountain—really?”
Lena isn’t really surprised that Kara is looking at her like she’s crazy. Shethinks she’s crazy. “I was always rather close to my father. Whenever he went on business trips, he’d bring back a pen. After I lost him…I kept up the tradition.” She doesn’t say, I collect the pens because they remind me of him. She doesn’t say, the pens make me feel closer to him. She doesn’t say, I miss him. But she doesn’t think she needs to. Kara is playing with the pendant Lena’s noticed she always wears, eyes brimming with understanding and sympathy.
“After I lost my parents, I used to sneak onto the roof of my adoptive family’s home, and I’d stare at the stars. All night.” She looks down at Judge, hiding whatever plays on her face as she talks about her family. “I still do it sometimes. When I miss them.”
“I suppose you and I have a lot more in common than I thought,” Lena says, and when Judge nuzzles further into Kara’s lap, she finds she doesn’t mind at all.
x
She gets invited to game night after four interviews and an impromptu lunch together during their fifth when Kara admitted she’d skipped breakfast and was hungry. (“We’ve been a person short since Lucy moved away,” and here Lena doesn’t ask who Lucy is or why she moved away, despite the fact it seems like an important thing to at least address, even in a throwaway comment, “and you’d be perfect! You and I can be a team. I’ll finally crush Winn at Pictionary!” Kara’s enthusiasm is infectious and so Lena nods, agrees to be Lucy’s replacement, and doesn’t think much of it.)
When she finds herself standing outside Kara’s apartment, however, she wonders what had possessed her to make such a colossal mistake.
She’s turning around, not really up to this night with people she didn’t know and a too-friendly reporter, when the door opens behind her (as if Kara was psychic and knew she was there), revealing a grinning Kara and a skeptical looking man.
“Lena! You made it! Ooh, you didn’t have to bring anything,” she says quickly, though she takes the bag Lena offers her. As Kara busies herself digging through the bag while walking towards the kitchen, the man offers Lena his hand and a tiny smile.
“I’m James Olsen. It’s nice to meet you, Miss Luthor.”
“It’s Lena, please,” she says, taking his hand and staring him down. She’d been wrong before. She does know at least one of Kara’s friends: James Olsen is Clark Kent’s best friend and Superman’s biggest fan, thus, Lena is rather sure that hating Luthors is child’s play for him, probably a prerequisite for a rapport with the man in the red cape. “I didn’t realize you left Metropolis.”
“I wouldn’t have missed your brother’s trial otherwise,” James says, one eyebrow raised. And she can hear what he’s saying, of course she can, she’s not stupid. He’s warning her and threatening her and trying to scare her off, but Kara lets out an excited squeal at the sight of the potstickers Lena had brought her (“I can’t believe you remembered they’re my favorite, thank you, Lena!”) and Lena has no trouble staring coolly back at James.
“Well I suppose that’s the difference between us then.” Her voice drops and her eyes narrow and she doesn’t even need the subtle look of shock passing over James’s face to know that she’s scared him. “I was there and I committed every single second of the trial to memory.” She wants to say more, she’s not quite done (because she might hate the Luthor name and all it implies, but she isa Luthor at the end of the day), but Kara chooses that moment to bound over to them, a confused expression on her face, worry in her eyes.
“Is everything okay?” she asks. James licks his lips, but he nods quickly, crossing his arms over his chest and turning away. He’s plopped down on the couch, fingers tapping away at his thigh, before Kara places a tentative hand on Lena’s elbow. “Iseverything okay?” she asks, like her friend’s word isn’t enough, like Lena’s feelings matter, and honestly, Lena is fan-fucking-tastic, but she isn’t ready for this.
(What is this? Who knows? Certainly not Lena.
She wonders if that’s something she should be embarrassed about. Or at least slightly concerned about.
She decides not to overthink it.)
“Yes,” she tells Kara with her best smile. “Everything is just fine.”
By the end of the night, she and her partner—Winn, she thinks he’s called, unfortunately she’d been paying more attention to Kara’s smile when she introduced him than what she was saying—lose spectacularly to James and Kara, James having ‘called’ Kara as his partner before anyone could say a word (namely, before Lena could). But Lena doesn’t mind. By the time she gets home, allowing Judge to curl up next to her in bed, she can confidently say that she’s named him accurately and that he’s an excellent judge of character. After all, she can understand his reaction to Kara now.
Something about her just puts one at ease.
x
Seeing Supergirl for the first time is not what she expects. That is, she doesn’t expect what she gets. That is, she’d no idea what to expect and thus is quite surprised. That is—it doesn’t matter. The point is Supergirl is well…super.
She thinks her trouble with finding a better description for the superhero has to do with the fact that moments ago, she’d nearly died in her helicopter. All the shaking and blasting and jerking is bound to make anyone momentarily have trouble with the English language.
And besides, it’s not as if Supergirl sticks around to chat. The second she’s sure Lena is safe, she’s off, gone to help her cousin with whatever had attacked Lena and random innocents in National City.
When Kara comes to her office a few hours later, Lena assumes it’s because she’s heard what happened and had wanted to check up on her. (That would be characteristic of Kara’s sweet and caring personality.) So she’s understandably off her game when ClarkKentaccompanies Kara, that they seem to be friendly with each other, that Clark Kentonly decides Lena has nothing to do with the madman who’s loose because he’s targeting her.
She has every right to be offended, she thinks.
Every right.
“Mr. Kent, I’m sorry you wasted a trip to National City, but the story you’re looking for just isn’t here.” She stands, circling around her desk and crossing her arms tightly over her chest, struggling to maintain her composure. She’d nearly died, dammit. For what? For Superman’s second biggest fan (James Olsen would always be number one) to tell her that because her name is Luthor she will never be free of suspicion and skepticism? “I’m not power-hungry, I don’t care enough for either Supergirl or Superman to want them dead, or really any alien for that matter, and world domination is not on L-Corp’s yearly agenda.” She holds her head up high, ignoring Kara’s expression, focusing her attention on Clark Kent. “I’m just a woman trying to make a name for myself. And your efforts to undermine that is not appreciated.”
“Miss Luthor, my only aim is to get to the truth. If you say you’re not involved—”
“—in the latest attempt against my own life? Thank you, Mr. Kent, for having so much faith in me.”
“I only mean that Lex Luthor pulled this sort of stunt before. Garnered public sympathy by staging—”
“—perhaps you should find Supergirl and ask her if she felt my helicopter nearly crashing felt staged.” She uncrosses her arms and gestures towards the door. “And this interview is over. You can tell Mr. White at the Daily Planet that he needs to find another supervillain to sell papers with, I’m not interested.” Judge, bless the tiny little fur ball, lets out a hiss from where he’s curled up on Lena’s couch, and Clark Kent seems to deflate, everything about him looking apologetic.
“You’re right. For what it’s worth, Miss Luthor, I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions. Kara did say she was sure you weren’t involved, but I admit I allowed your brother’s history to cloud my judgment.” He smiles genuinely, and perhaps for a second Lena can understand what Lois Lane sees in him. He’s charming in an awkward and surprising way. “I’ll see myself out. Kara?”
“I’ll catch up,” she says, and Lena watches as the two of them have a silent conversation with a series of blinks and head tilts before Clark Kent sighs and turns, muttering out a farewell as he leaves Lena’s office. When she and Kara are alone, her first instinct is to chat away with the reporter who’d somehow become her friend. She wants to tell Kara about Supergirl, about the helicopter, about how gladshe is her pilot would be all right. But Lena ignores her first instinct, and instead waits for Kara to break the silence. And she does, with alarming quickness: “I told him you weren’t involved.”
“So he said.”
“I didn’t doubt you, not for a second.”
“You’re likely the only one.”
“That’s not true. Our weekly articles—”
“Oh Kara, don’t you get it?” Lena sighs, leaning against her desk. “The articles are a joke.” Kara looks hurt by the comment, and Lena hastens to explain. “You write beautiful articles every week. And I love them. But people have already made up their minds about the Luthor name. It doesn’t matter what you write, I’ll always be a Luthor, and people will always come after me with pitchforks and torches.”
“Well that’s stupid,” Kara mutters, a blush on her cheeks, though Lena’s not quite sure why. She plays with her glasses as she frowns, clearly thinking through her next words. “That’s like people not letting Supergirl escape Superman’s shadow. They’re two separate people, they should be judged on their own merits.” Her mouth presses into a grim smile, a ferocious look appearing in her eyes. “And your actions, Lena, speak for themselves. You’re not like your brother. I know it.”
“Coming from my only friend in National City, that means more than you know.”
(Kara blushes again, and Lena just doesn’t know why.
But she likes it. The blush, the smile, the ducked head. She finds she wants to reach out and…oh.)
“…exactly true,” Kara is saying, and Lena has to physically shake her head, clearing her thoughts and attempting to figure out what Kara just said.
“Sorry?”
“I said you have more than just me. Winn likes you. James doesn’t like admitting he likes you, but he does. And I’m sure my sister would love you! You’re both really smart and beautiful and—” She cuts herself off, looking alarmed. “My point is, you have friends. All of us know what it’s like to be overshadowed by a name or a person or an idea.” She shrugs as she bends over to pick up Judge, who’s been curling around her leg. She pets him, smiling widely when his eyes close. “I know you think you are, but you’re not alone, Lena.”
Lena reaches out to take her cat from Kara, and if their hands brush, well, it’s totally on accident. “Thank you, Kara,” she says, and it doesn’t feel like it’s enough.
x
She doesn’t know why she’s surprised that Lex is behind the crazy man trying to kill her. She doesn’t know why it hurts so much to think that her brother—who is certifiably evil—wants her dead. After all, Lex wants everyone dead, she’s not really all that special.
(So what if she thought those years they grew up together, those nights they spent reading books with a flashlight, those looks they’d give each other when Lillian was being her passive-aggressive self, made her exempt from Lex’s madness?
So what if she thought that her brother would remember that he was her brother?)
After shooting the madman during that press conference that went all wrong (she forgets that just because she’s rebranded her company and she sees it in a new light doesn’t mean everyone else does), Lena gives herself one night. She opens a bottle of expensive wine, settles on the couch in front of the television, and spends the night drinking, cuddling with Judge, and drunkenly muttering protests (“No, Rachel, you belong with Monica and Phoebe, stop being so stupid, he doesn’t deserve you”).
She falls asleep thinking that the only thing that could’ve made this night better is potstickers, and her drunken mind doesn’t connect the dots as to why that is.
x
She watches the news surrounding the President’s Alien Amnesty Act with interest.
Lena Luthor grew up around men and women who thrived on politics, and she knows how to sniff out deception. And the Amnesty Act—with all its talk about making aliens feel welcome and safe—is nothing more than a voluntary alien registration, a way to keep tabs on their visitors from other worlds.
Biting her lip, she exits out of the last article she read and pushes her laptop away, leaning back in her chair. Without really meaning to, her eyes trail towards where she knows the alien detection prototype is hidden, just waiting for her decision to make a few final touches and go into production or scrap entirely.
(It’s not like she doesn’t like aliens. She doesn’t even know any aliens to dislike. What she does know is that it was an alien that led to her brother going mad. What she does know is that these aliens have powers and technologies beyond human understanding. What she does know is that just because she doesn’t believe these aliens are all bad, it doesn’t mean she should idly sit back and wait for the few that are to hurt innocent people.
Being prepared is key. She never wants to be caught unawares again, not after everything that had happened with Lex.)
Her alien detection device is logical, not xenophobic. So she’s surprised when Kara doesn’t see it that way.
“What you’re doing is giving people the tools to act on their dislike and distrust of aliens,” she says, shaking her head when Lena joking holds the device towards her. “What message does it send when L-Corp—which has changed direction to become more philanthropic—decides to market a device for the sole purpose of outing aliens who’re living peacefully among humans?”
“You’re saying we don’t have the right to know who our neighbors are? If they could be dangerous?”
“But that’s not what you’re proposing here. This device,” she stares at it distastefully, as if it’s done her personal wrong, “doesn’t tell someone if an alien is good or bad or is likely to attack a human. All it does is run a test on DNA, analyzing whether or not it’s from this planet. You’d learn more about a person if you just talked to them.”
“This technology would come out eventually, Kara,” Lena says, frowning. “And while I admire your belief in the good in people, would it really hurt to be prepared?”
“When you’re producing an item that can stoke people’s xenophobia, then yes!”
“You don’t like my device but you’re perfectly content with the President’s Act?”
“The Amnesty Act is voluntary. No one hasto register. But your device takes the choice out of the alien’s hands. They’re already marked as different, Lena. Why would make life difficult for the few who can pass peacefully as humans?”
“You mean like Supergirl?” Lena scoffs, and for whatever reason, Kara’s expression hardens.
“I would have thought if anyone understood the importance of being judged by one’s own merits, it’d be you.” She pulls her phone out of her pocket and stares at the blank screen. “James is calling, I gotta go to work.”
“Kara, wait—”
“I’ll see you later, Lena.” And without a look back, Kara turns on her heel and stalks out of Lena’s office.
After a day full of meetings, Lena calls Kara when it’s pushing midnight, but for the first time since she’s known the reporter, she doesn’t get an answer.
x
Several days later, the article is published, and Lena bites her lip at the lack of Kara she sees in it. If her name hadn’t been on the byline, Lena wouldn’t have believed Kara even wrote it.
And when Kara arrives for their regularly scheduled weekly meeting, she’s morose, she’s quiet, and though she admits that Carr had her rewrite her article several times before he was satisfied it was unbiased enough, though she admits that there’s truth the fact that some aliens just aren’t good, Lena feels a certain degree of…standoffishness from Kara.
(Almost as if the reporter is afraid to get too close, as if she’s erected walls between the two of them out of fear and worry, and Lena doesn’t know what to do or say to get back the relationship they had before.
Because when Kara smiles at her as she is about to leave, it’s sad and small and it breaks Lena’s heart.)