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Lena no longer watches the night sky above National City in hopes of catching a glimpse of a red cape.
She still takes a glass of whiskey every other day on her balcony, though, staring out into the empty darkness from the top of her world. Lex may have had the last laugh, may have managed to break her heart and wound her more deeply than any assassin’s bullet ever could, but Lena will not let his shadow deprive her of one of her life’s simple pleasures too. It’s one of the few semblances of normalcy that she can cling to, one of the few ways she can pretend that things are back to normal, like they were before.
(Of course, there isn’t a normal to get back to. There isn’t a way for things to be right again. There’s only the mess that Lex left and needs up cleaning, the work that Lena buries herself in, the blocked number that once was under ❤️ Kara❤️ in her list of contacts, and that old, familiar solitude reigning again in her life.)
It’s a quiet night, balmy and uncharacteristically serene for the city, with no menacing shadow or alien warship in sight on the skies above. Lena doesn’t enjoy the calm, the quiet: it leaves her frighteningly alone with her thoughts. It makes her ponder how the second she stops being the Luthor , the titan shouldering a stained family legacy, the obligations of a giant company, and on occasion, the protection of the very planet, she’s nothing but a lonely soul without friends, without family, without hope of having anything more than the crushing weight of her name.
The whiskey only helps so much.
This time, though, she’s not left to simmer in her own misery. She doesn’t hear when her office door opens, but she does catch the clicking of heels first, then the whiff of a familiar perfume.
“I don’t take meetings after hours,” she states, as cold and dispassionate as she can get. She doesn’t bother turning around.
“Just a friendly visit then.” Andrea is not deterred by the cold shoulder: she stops right by Lena’s side, leaning on the balcony railing with one arm so she can stand facing Lena. “So the rumors are true,” she smiles, tilting her head. “Lena Luthor does spend her days and nights at the office.”
Lena rolls her eyes.
“Is there a point to this, Andrea?”
“Can’t an old friend just come over and say hi every once in a while?” Andrea counters with a question of her own, and Lena snorts into her whiskey.
“A friend .”
Her tone is cutting enough for the conversation to cease. Andrea turns her head and stares out into the sky, letting the noises of the city fill the void between them. When she opens her mouth again, she speaks so softly that her voice is almost lost in the night:
“I dreamt so much about this back in boarding school.”
The words land like a heavy, blinding strike, unexpected and brutally efficient in their tenderness. Lena screws her eyes shut and exhales heavily, trying to grapple with the ache they leave in her chest.
This is the reason why Lena has studiously avoided Andrea outside of boardroom meetings, rejecting the occasional dinner invitation, rebuffing every gesture more familiar than advisable. This is the reason why she has not wanted anything other than jaded barbs or cold, professional promises traded between them. Because Andrea knows her, knows how to unravel her with a single sentence that burns Lena’s throat more than the whiskey.
“Dropping by unannounced?” She finally rasps out, struggling to keep her tone detached.
“Running the world together,” Andrea replies without missing a beat. She turns her head, smiling at Lena again, warm and wistful. “Unwinding with you after a long day. Trying to cheer you up when you’re sulking.”
Lena takes another long, heavy sip of her drink.
“Sounds delightful.”
“Lena,” Andrea breathes her name so gently that Lena feels like she might cry. “Please, look at me.”
She wants to resist it, she wants, needs to be icy and turn her head away, needs to smother the emotions in her heart that are now bubbling to the surface. If she doesn’t, she’ll be ripped apart once more, open and vulnerable, letting the poison of delusional hope that Luthor might not have to be synonymous with lonely and loveless seep into her veins again. If she only scratches at an old wound to distract from the pain of a new one, she’ll never heal from either.
But then Andrea reaches out, tentative, hand almost shaking as she lays it over Lena’s arm, and the soft, warm touch sweeps every warning from Lena’s mind.
When she turns to face her, Andrea smiles, jittery but radiant.
“I want there to be an us again,” she says. The words sound confident, almost rehearsed, but the look in her eyes is nothing but pleading. “Not L-Corp and Obsidian and a corporate partnership. Lena and Andrea.”
It is, objectively, exactly the kind of thing Lena’s expected to hear, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling her head spinning, her heart pounding in her chest. She knows she must be flushed, she knows Andrea must feel how she trembles under her touch.
“That’s a tall order.”
“I know, I just–,” Andrea shakes her head, then takes a deep breath. She turns again and stares at the sky with a melancholy smile. “We used to do this, remember? Sneaking out to the rooftops, staring at the stars all night. You’d forget to bring a blanket half the time.”
“I wanted to have an excuse to snuggle up to you. I never dared to just ask outright.” The confession slips out before Lena would have time to rein in her thoughts, but when she sees the way Andrea’s face lights up, she cannot regret it, cannot bring herself to deflect or look away.
“I could never deny you anything,” Andrea whispers. She raises her hand from Lena’s arm to her face, cupping her cheek gently, and despite her better instincts, Lena lets herself lean into its warmth. “I love you, Lena. I never stopped loving you. I just need you to know that.”
The world comes to a standstill. Lena’s entire universe narrows down to that I love you echoing in her head, the achingly hopeful look in Andrea’s eyes, the soft touch of her hand, the I love you too stuck in Lena’s throat. She’s too drunk on the moment to swallow it, too fearful of the force of her emotions to just spit it out.
“I know,” she finally chokes out and leans, falls forward, into Andrea’s arms, pressing their foreheads together. She doesn’t know when she’s started crying, but doesn’t really care either. “I know.”
Andrea gathers Lena up in her arms, pressing her lips to Lena’s temple and Lena burrows into her embrace, trembling, delirious with emotion. She shuts her eyes, lets her body sway with Andrea’s embrace, lets the I love you, I love you so much that Andrea keeps murmuring into her hair envelop her like a shield.
Lena doesn’t know how much time passes until she finally draws back: a minute, an eternity. Andrea’s still holding her, still looking at her with so much love that it’s hard for Lena to believe it’s not just an illusion, a daydream. The tension’s drained from her body, along with all the nervous, angry energy; all that’s left is the long-repressed, hungry yearning for tenderness.
“I’m so tired, Andy,” she murmurs, and Andrea smiles, her thumb gently stroking Lena’s cheek, wiping the tears away.
“I know, baby. Let me take you home.”
Lena nods and sinks into Andrea’s arms again.
(Later, in the back of her car, holding Andrea’s hand, head resting on Andrea’s shoulder, she finally whispers that I love you back; and it’s her turn then to wipe a tear away.)