Work Text:
Lena couldn’t possibly care less about who Supergirl chooses to hang around with.
Their paths have separated, they’ve both made it entirely clear. Supergirl isn’t willing to see her efforts to make the world a better place anymore, Supergirl only thinks of her as some wretched, cartoonish villain now. A Luthor . How ironic, for a universe where the Luthor name is finally supposed to stand for something good .
Lena doesn’t dwell on it. She has greater things to dedicate herself to than to lose sleep over some lying clown in a spandex suit, however ridiculously blonde, ridiculously muscular, and once devastatingly close to Lena’s heart she might be.
She shuts herself up in her lab and gets to work on Non Nocere once again, with renewed fervor.
She’s around hour fifteen of tinkering with a system that immediately poses a new problem whenever she solves one when the words Andrea Rojas targeted in a terrorist attack float across the air and into her consciousness. She whips her head up, and stares straight at the monitor across the lab that’s mystifyingly playing the news channel, the report recounting some sort of an explosion at CatCo, helpfully contained by S–
“I don’t want these,” Lena murmurs, slamming around blindly until the monitor’s shut off, the anchor cut off in the middle of a statement about how Miss Rojas is grateful for the assistance of the city’s beloved superhero. Eve Teschmacher, a bafflingly enduring fixture in her lab even after the death and rebirth of a universe, sneaks into her view instead.
“You asked for the news to be on, Miss Luthor.”
Lena frowns.
“I did?” After six espressos and barely four hours of sleep, she’s not even quite sure she picked out the clothes she’s wearing. “Well, I don’t want it anymore. No need for this infantile fawning to distract me from what’s actually important work.”
She pointedly stares at the computer in front of her again, trying to return to work. It is to no avail. The string of letters and numbers, the forms and sketches all float and meld before her eyes, reconstituting into two familiar, much-reviled faces. Lena lets out an annoyed huff and rubs her eyes.
“Miss Teschmacher? Call my car.”
She does take a shower and slip into a new set of clothes before storming over to CatCo, she’s not a barbarian . She also suspects that Andrea will be more amenable to what she’s intending to propose if she’s in a pencil skirt and a haphazardly buttoned silk blouse, rather than yesterday’s sweated-through pantsuit, smelling of chemicals.
CatCo is buzzing heavily enough with the events of the day that Lena can stride through the bullpen and up to the doorway of Andrea’s office unnoticed.
This proves to be greatly unfortunate.
Andrea’s in her office, looking remarkably well put together for someone who just survived an assassination attempt. Lena almost feels a tinge of pride. But she’s not alone: standing next to her in that obnoxious red-blue, with that obnoxious smile, is Supergirl herself.
If Lena had any food in her, she’s sure her stomach would be turning.
They don’t notice her: they are too engrossed in conversation, standing way closer than it’d be necessary for two people carrying on a casual, strictly professional conversation. Supergirl has her arms crossed, muscles subtly flexing under the tight material of her suit, staring intently at Andrea as she follows whatever the other woman’s saying, gaze only occasionally dropping down to Andrea’s lips and down below. Andrea, in turn, is beaming at her with her head tilted and lashes fluttering, one hand resting on Supergirl’s forearm.
When Lena knocks on the door with more force than necessary, they break apart, startled. The way Supergirl’s face grows from flustered to mortified when she realizes who their surprise visitor is helps temper the sour taste in Lena’s mouth. Andrea, on the other hand, only brightens up, immediately moving towards Lena with arms extended.
“I didn’t expect to see you today,” she says as she wraps Lena in a hug, pressing a kiss to her cheek. Lena lets her, mechanically returns the greeting. She makes a point of not even looking in Supergirl’s direction.
“I just heard the news, I had to come over.” She lets one hand linger on Andrea’s waist as they pull apart from the hug. “Are you alright?”
“Yes, thanks to Supergirl,” Andrea beams, turning for another look at the object of her newfound adoration. “She really is extraordinary. But then again,” she winks, conspiratorial. “I don’t have to tell you all about that.”
Lena feels the smile freezing on her face.
“You certainly don’t,” she says, fighting down the bile in her throat. “Can we talk in private?”
Though the question is addressed to Andrea only and Lena is still taking great care not to spare a single glance for National City’s caped crusader, Supergirl cannot keep herself from butting in:
“I’ll be outside if you need me.”
Andrea shoots her another adoring smile. There’s the whoosh of the obnoxious superspeeding that Lena knows all too well, and they are finally in blessed Supergirl-free solitude. Andrea raises an eyebrow.
“So, what really brought you here?”
“You,” Lena replies immediately, reaching out to take Andrea’s hand gently between her own hands, a mask of anxious concern on her face. “I want to protect you. I’ve been there before, the whole ordeal. I can help you through it.”
“Aw, babe.” Andrea practically melts into her arms, pressing a kiss to Lena’s cheek. “I love you too. But don’t worry about it. Supergirl has already pledged to personally look after my safety until they find the culprits.” She draws back with a roguish smile. “I know you’ve enjoyed her protection too. Who could ever refuse that, right?”
Lena bites down on her lip so hard that it almost draws blood.
“It’s a mystery.”
“Dinner this Saturday? My place?”
Andrea’s already moving on and away, back to her desk, and Lena fights to smother the sob and the angry scream stuck in her throat. She smiles so widely that her cheeks hurt.
“Certainly.”
~
It only gets worse.
Lena takes a bottle of bourbon to bed and wakes with the expectable splitting headache. It turns out to be vastly more pleasant, however, than the headline that first greets her when she opens the news alerts on her phone: Supergirl Saves Andrea Rojas Again .
Never one to deny her most self-destructive and masochistic instincts, Lena decides to turn on the TV.
This time, there is video evidence, because it happened at a press event, like most of Lena’s own public entanglements with National City’s most beloved liar. This time, Lena can watch in pristine, high definition footage as Supergirl swoops in to shield Andrea with her body, as she turns to mouth are you okay and Andrea’s gaze is instantly glued to her lips, as she gathers Andrea up in a tight bridal carry and speeds away, Andrea’s face tucked into the crook of her neck. And this time, Supergirl is there by Andrea’s side once the threat’s been dealt with and the event can carry on, her posture calm and regal, the remnants of a bright red lipstick smear on her cheek only ever so slightly visible.
But there is one particular moment that draws her fiery hate unlike any other. Towards the end of the press conference, Andrea turns her head to look at her caped bodyguard and declares Supergirl truly is my hero with an enamored smile, and Supergirl breaks her heroic posturing in turn to duck her head, bashful, giggly. Lena rewinds it, pauses, and rewinds it again until she’s sick to her stomach.
She could just stop there, return to her bourbon or her lab, and forget this whole infantile affair. She has nothing to do with Andrea or Supergirl anymore, nothing outside of a boardroom anyways. They could be eloping to Hawaii right now and it could and should not interest Lena in the slightest.
Instead, she drinks a bottle of water, then downs three espressos, and directs her driver to take her to the DEO instead of L-Corp.
As expected, Supergirl is hanging around the command center with Agent Danvers and Dox, engaged in a deep, enthusiastic debate about pizza toppings. It’s a trait that Lena once found endearing in Kara Danvers, the excited gestures and the emphatic statements in a spirited discussion about the most mundane things in the world.
Her taste has since improved.
The clicking of her heels must be a strange enough sound even in the cacophony of the place: as soon as she descends the stairs, Supergirl whips her head up, freezing when her eyes meet Lena’s. Then, in a blink of an eye, she speeds across the hall to meet her.
“Miss Luthor!” Lena notes the awkwardness of her posture – the hunched shoulders, the hands clasped tightly together in front of her – with some satisfaction. What she likes much less is the tentative smile playing on Supergirl’s lips. “We weren’t expecting to see you today, are you g–”
“I’m only here for one thing,” Lena cuts her off, tone as icy as a gust of Arctic wind. Lillian would be proud. “Don’t lie to her for four years too, if you’re able. She deserves better.”
The smile on Supergirl’s face freezes, then melts away entirely. She looks confused first, then almost pained, clouds drawing over the sky-blue of her eyes.
“Lena, I–” She reaches out and Lena takes a hasty step back before her hand could reach Lena’s own. Supergirl flinches and Lena feels something scratching at her throat, the devastated expression of her once beloved friend no longer quite satisfying.
“That’s all, Supergirl,” she grits out and turns, striding away. She doesn’t spare another glance for the slumped, lonely figure in red-blue behind her.
By the time her car pulls up at the L-Corp building, Lena manages to pull herself together again, entering her lab as cool and collected as one possibly can with a hangover and no breakfast in their system. She heads straight to her desk, only stopped by Miss Teschmacher’s tentative, but decidedly worried inquiry:
“Miss Luthor, are you okay?”
“Of course I am,” Lena huffs, flipping through slides on her tablet before looking up with a glare. “What sort of question is that?”
“I wouldn’t like to overstep, but you…” Miss Teschmacher draws closer, hesitating for a second, then indicates Lena’s cheek. Lena follows the motion with her own hand, confused when her fingers meet something damp on her face. Miss Teschmacher is looking at her with almost pitiful concern. “You seem to be crying.”
“Oh.” Lena stares down at the wetness on her fingertips. Slowly, she presses her thumb against her index finger, rubs them together as she shoves the image of Andrea and Supergirl together together down to the deepest abyss of her mind. It’s only fitting to wash her hands clean of all further upheavals with her own tears. “It must be allergies.”