Work Text:
“Agent Danvers to see you, ma’am.” Lena frowned down at her office intercom, the light beneath the speaker glinting up at her, indicating that, yes, Jess was talking to her, which meant that, yes, Kara’s sister Alex was here.
For some reason.
Lena pressed the button down, shifting in her office chair. “Short dark hair? Leather jacket?”
“Yes ma’am. Apparently the FBI have some paperwork she needs you to sign.” Leaning back in her chair, Lena let out a slow exhale. Of course. Alex was the most important person in Kara’s life, and after the… conversation last week, Kara would’ve told Alex that Lena knew.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t had theories leading up to the conversation. Kara’s reflexes were always a bit too fast, she ate enough that her metabolism had always seemed at least slightly inhuman… “I flew here - uh, on a bus!”, the way she always was running out of their time together with a half-hearted excuse of a ‘family emergency’ or something CatCo related. Lena may be willing to lie to herself, but in the face of such evidence, it had been difficult to not entertain the thought that Kara might be Supergirl. But entertaining the thought and being confronted with the reality are two very, very different things. Lena looked down at her desk, frowning to herself. Kara really had picked an awful time to finally reveal her secret, days after the (hopefully) last encounter with CADMUS, but also after an inexplicable period of silence from the blonde. Before this week, Lena couldn’t think of any period of time greater than 48 hours where the blonde hadn’t reached out in some way since they’d met -
“Ms. Luthor?” Lena started. Her intercom light continued to shine. Focus, Lena. Alex is here. Paperwork, or something.
“Sorry Jess. Send her in, but if she’s not gone in 10 minutes please come in to remind me about the conference call with R&D later.”
There was a brief moment of silence on the other end of the intercom, and then, “...yes Ms. Luthor.”
Lena stood, crossing her office to the bar as the door opened and Alex Danvers walked inside. Lena didn’t glance in her direction, opting instead to focus on keeping her hands steady while she poured herself a moderately sized glass of scotch. Behind her, she heard Alex clear her throat, and the shuffling of papers.
“Please, Agent, take a seat. Would you like something to drink?” By the time Lena turned around, her hands were steady, and her face was schooled into that classic Luthor mask of impassivity. Vaguely polite, more than slightly disinterested, and, above all, cold. Alex frowned back at her.
“I’m, uh, not drinking, thank you.” She glanced around the office, still taking it in. The wood paneling, the smooth lines of the furniture, a slight frown on her face. “This place soundproofed?”
It was Lena’s turn to frown, but only slightly and momentarily. “Yes.”
“Any cameras?” Lena blinked, then responded, “No cameras, Agent, just you and me.”
Alex moved from her spot near the doors to a chair opposite Lena, a folder of papers clutched in her hand. A folder with the FBI logo conspicuously absent from its front. As she sat down, she sighed, looking at the floor before meeting Lena’s eyes again.
“I told her not to tell you. I could say it was just because the less people know the safer she is, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say your last name didn’t also have something to do with it.”
Lena was proud of not choking on her scotch at that. She still had to take a moment before responding, clearing her throat slightly. “I- I appreciate your candor, Agent Danvers,” Alex bristled, clearly uncomfortable with the walls of formality Lena had taken refuge behind, “and I can’t disagree with you. Every person who knows the identity of Supergirl is another potential vector for disaster.” Alex seemed surprised at this, and, to be honest, Lena was too. Six days ago, when the conversation had happened, Lena had been… Well, furious isn’t quite descriptive enough. It had taken all of her Luthor upbringing to not scream in Kara’s face, to not rant about how hurt she was that Kara hadn’t trusted her with this, that after all their time together Lena was still, first and foremost, a Luthor, a liability to be weighed and measured. Alex leaned forward in her chair. “So, if we agree that it was the safer thing to do, why haven’t you talked to Kara in almost a week?”
Lena broke eye contact, her eyes first flitting to her phone, and then to her laptop, before coming to rest on her glass of scotch, which she sipped. 18 missed calls she hadn’t answered, 14 voicemails she hadn’t listened to, 47 text messages and even ten emails, of varying levels of professionalism. All of which she had responded to with nothing. With silence. With the same stillness she’d held as Kara had begged her to say something before flying out her balcony doors, six days ago.
~~ “I have work I have to finish, so if you would, Supergirl.” She had gestured at the still open doors, curtains fluttering in the nighttime air. Kara had gaped at her. “Lena, I- I know that you’re upset, and you have every right to be, but I still want to be your friend, I still care about you…”
Lena had dug her nails into her left palm so hard she’d almost drawn blood, but she hadn’t wavered, hadn’t shown weakness. Her face had stayed schooled into its practiced mask of business professionalism, her left hand hidden behind her back, her right held towards the balcony. Yes, she’d been clenching her jaw so hard that it ached the next morning, and yes, she’d sobbed herself to sleep, but in that moment, in front of Kara, she’d shown nothing. And, confronted with the stoic face and silence, the Girl of Steel had waited, lip quivering. She had waited, and after a full minute of silence her shoulders slumped slightly, and after two more she had flown away, disappearing in the blink of an eye, with nothing but the fluttering of papers around Lena’s office to show she was ever there. ~~
Lena blinked, realizing Alex was still sitting in her office, waiting for an answer. Her glass of scotch was empty, the ice clinking against the sides of the glass. “I’m afraid I fail to see what my personal relationships have to do with this F.B.I. paperwork I’m supposed to sign?” Yes, it was immature, and yes, Lena had let her tone drip with sarcasm when she said the letters to the agency that she knew Alex wasn’t working for. But Lillian had raised her to be a Luthor, and that meant not showing weakness. Even if it meant attacking a friend (or at least a sister of her best friend, or previous best friend...) to hide that weakness. Alex’s eyes flashed with annoyance, but she inhaled a deep breath through her nose and let it out slowly. Interesting, she was trying to stay calm. Lena had seen her lean aggressively into arguments for much lesser things - most notably at a game night where Winn had, off-handedly, critiqued the game design of Monopoly as ‘outdated and designed to make you have a bad time’. Apparently Alex had too many fond childhood memories of board game nights to let that slide, and the ensuing argument had escalated to shouting before Kelly had stepped in to calm things down by pointing out that, in the current state of play, there was no way anyone but Lena would win, and 'why don’t we switch to a different game that everyone would enjoy'. But here she was trying to stay calm, to not rise to Lena's baiting.
“Kara hasn’t slept you know.” Lena hated how much that statement affected her. Hated the flinch she made when she heard Kara’s name, hated how her eyes widened when she realized Alex was saying Kara had gone without sleep for something in the neighborhood of 150 hours, hated how she could see Alex see both those things. “She doesn’t actually need to sleep, with the whole yellow sun thing, but she likes to.” Alex continued. “Her support staff at the DEO - Department of Extranormal Operations, I can see you wondering - have started to notice. Not notice she’s upset; it’s Kara, you know she can’t hide her feelings for shit, she’s been borderline depressed since that night. No, I mean the sleep thing. She was hiding it the first few days, but it’s hard to ignore Supergirl being on comms all night, every night.” Lena twisted her fingers in her lap, beneath the surface of her desk. She was certain she kept anything from showing on her face, kept her jaw from clenching, kept her brow from furrowing, but Alex clearly reacted to something, her eyes softening. Maybe it had been Lena's lack of comment. “She’ll be fine Lena, she really doesn’t need sleep. When she first arrived on Earth, when she realized how far from human she really is here, she didn’t sleep for almost a month.”
At this, Lena couldn’t help herself; her jaw clenched, and her eyes widened again, if only for a moment. A month? Kara truly didn’t need to sleep, but then, why did she? Were there lesser effects from such prolonged lack of sleep? Surely if there were zero side effects she would always not sleep; what had made her start sleeping again all those years ago? Alex had clearly been watching for some reaction from Lena; her eyes narrowed and a slight smirk appeared on her lips. “I know you still care about her. Lord knows she still cares about you. Just… just talk to her. Preferably before we find out if Kryptonians can die of a broken heart.” Alex glanced down at her watch, stood from the chair, and tossed the folder onto Lena’s desk almost exactly as the office door opened and Jess appeared with a clipboard in hand.
“Ms. Luthor, I’m sorry to interrupt but there’s-” Jess began, but Alex cut her off. “-some L-Corp emergency that only Lena can handle. I know, it’s been ten minutes, I’ll see myself out.” She turned and walked out of the office, stepping smoothly around Jess and heading for the elevators. Jess frowned after her, and closed the office doors, before returning her attention to Lena, who had still not moved from her chair.
“Did you want to go over the R&D topics you had planned for the next quarter?” It took Lena a second to respond. “Umm, no Jess, that’s fine. Thank you.” Jess nodded at the CEO, and stepped out of the office.
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The paperwork had been, of course, a hefty non-disclosure agreement. Simultaneously detailed without actually saying anything concrete about Supergirl on paper, it used phrases like “off-duty time” and “human alias” in ways that made Lena frown. Yes, Kara’s day-to-day life would be shattered if the information got out, and, yes, the NDA was clearly meant as a last-ditch protective effort to stop that, but… It was so impersonal, the way it covered everything. Lena signed it after reading through all five pages twice. It sat, nice and neat, in it’s blank manilla folder that Alex had brought it in. And, the week continued. Thursday turned into Friday turned into a work-filled weekend, and more and more of Lena’s thoughts were consumed with a timer that was ticking up. Surely Kara had slept by now.
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“Ms. Luthor, there’s a Mr. Schott to see you? I’ve told him that you’re very busy, and have a board meeting in five minutes, but he’s-” Winn’s voice cuts in from the background of Jess’ intercom call “I’ll be real quick I swear!” “-he’s been very persistent. Insists he knows you?”
Lena sighed. Her eyes swept across her desk to the manila folder, sitting where she had placed it, four days ago. Surely Kara had slept by now; Lena had been trying to keep track of reports of Supergirl activity across the city at night, but then two days ago there’d been a CNN report of Supergirl helping people in a flood in Bangladesh, and she’d realized, once again, the scope of Kara’s abilities. She leaned forward to her intercom speaker. “He’s fine, Jess. Send him in, thank you.” She grabbed the folder, and stood as Winn walked into her office.
“Lena! You are still alive! I mean, I knew you were, L-Corp only put out those two PR briefings this week, and they were both just statements about the nano-machines you’ve been working on, which, ohmygod you’re working on nano-machines and making actual progress that’s so cool!” In spite of herself, Lena felt her mouth curl into a grin. As always, Winn’s enthusiasm, whether about sci-fi cinema or board games or technological advances, was infectious. “Glad to hear that you follow L-Corp briefings to see if I’m still living.” Lena had meant it as a joke, but Winn’s face fell a bit. “Well, I follow them because I’m worried about you. I mean, its been, what, twelve days now? And like, sure, Kara’s sleeping again,” Lena felt her entire body relax, as if she’d been tensing every muscle nonstop for almost two weeks. “but no one knows how you’re doing. And like, I get it, you’re a strong independent woman who’s capable and self-sustaining, but… you and Kara are like…” and here Winn raised both his eyebrows in emphasis, before continuing. “So how’re you doing?”
It was a loaded question, Lena thought. What are fifteen hour days compared to her usual twelve? An increase in work-time, certainly, but… she’d always lost herself in her work during stressful times, this was no different. No different, unless you count her lack of sleep, her night-time hours spent watching the news if it was about Supergirl, or sitting in her dark, empty apartment if it wasn’t. Either way, an average of four hours of sleep, and a more-than-healthy serving of alcohol per night wasn’t a healthy verdict, but she’d slept all day Sunday to make up for it. “I’ve been -”
Lena cut herself off, suddenly replaying Winn’s words in her mind. “You knew.” Winn’s face fell into an apologetic grimace as Lena sat, shocked it had taken her so long to actually parse what he’d said. He started into some babble about doing tech work at the DEO, about finding out back when he had still been at CatCo, as she stared back at him. Of course Winn knew. “Who else knows?” Her mother would be shocked by the rudeness of her interruption. Winn blinked, cutting off his babbling and clearing his throat. “Umm, well me, Alex, obviously, uh, James knows, I think Kelly figured it out on her own, actually. Nia works with me and her at the DEO, actually, she’s like super cool…” Winn’s voice trailed off as Lena broke eye contact and stared at the office wall behind her head.
Lena inhaled through her nose, letting out a shaky exhale.
“So it really was just me who didn’t know.”
There’s silence then. At least in the office; outside the wind whistled by, and in the distance it looked like a storm was building up. Down on the street there are the sounds of traffic, of a city winding down for the day, of people heading home for the day. But in Lena Luthor’s office, in a conversation between two friends (still friends?), there’s silence.
Winn cleared his throat. “I thought she should tell you. I mean, even Alex stopped being so… gosh, I guess prejudiced is the right word, stopped being so prejudiced against you like six months ago now, but Kara…” Winn shook his head. Lena glanced more directly at him, and saw a small, sad smile on his face. “She was worried she would lose you. You were the only friend Kara Danvers had, really. Everyone else in her life… everyone else writes her off as some bubbly blonde, or knows she’s Supergirl. Me included. And once you know, it’s hard to not treat her differently. I mean, I’ve seen her cook a bag of popcorn using her heat vision, and like, yeah, it was super burnt at the bottom, but… I think that, after losing her planet as a pre-teen, and then losing her foster dad, and then deciding to give up her chance at a normal life to be Supergirl, she decided to be a little selfish for once.”
Lena inhaled, slowly, through her nose. “You talked to her about me.” Winn chuckled. “Uh, I mean in passing a bit. Well, not exactly in passing but... she decided to get drunk on Monday night. Was really responsible, put herself in a cell at the DEO with red sun lamps so she couldn’t mess up anything with her powers, but…” Winn looked at the floor, off to his left, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Alex went in to check on her after four hours, and they got into this huge screaming match. She threw a bottle at Alex, and didn’t want to talk to J’onn, or have Nia see her like that…”
“So that left you.”
“Yeah, that left me. I went in there with a bottle of tequila, and just sat down on the cot and started drinking it next to her.” Winn shuddered. “God I hate tequila. But eventually, she started talking, and not a ton of it was super coherent -” Lena almost snickered at the unintentional pun “- but that was the gist of why she took so long to tell you. Apparently she had a best friend in middle school back in Midvale, but she moved away, and then Kara didn’t fit in too well in college, and then she was in National City... And like, she was with Mon-El, but that was really just because he was an alien too, not because she like liked him or anything, not like-”
Winn’s eyes went wide, and he shut his mouth with an audible click. Lena blinked, twice, waiting for him to continue, to finish the thought he had been forming. She would be loath to admit it, but she missed Kara, and news of how she was doing was like water when she had been stranded in this desert of her own devising. And besides, she and Kara had never talked too much about Mon-El, the only serious romantic relationship Lena knew about from Kara’s life.
And then, like the last piece of a puzzle, like a line in Tetris completing, like the realization that the oven had been left on at home, Lena realized. What was it Alex had said? “...talk to her. Preferably before we find out if Kryptonians can die of a broken heart.”
“Winn-” Lena began, but he was already standing, babbling away, “Well gosh Lena it was so great to see you, I can’t wait to see how those nano-machines shape up, know that we all miss you at game night but don’t feel guilty you can’t come, I understand, rebuilding trust is a process, I’m not trying to rush you or anything I just wanted to say it, anyways have a great rest of your day don’t forget to eat don’t work too late!” the last words semi-shouted back past Lena’s office doors as Winn Schott practically fled past Jess’ desk.
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“Ms. Luthor?” Lena jumped in her seat, eyes flitting up to her office door. Jess was standing there, clipboard in- no, no clipboard in her hand, no files ready for Lena to sign. Jess was standing there with her coat over her arm, her leather messenger bag over her shoulder. A glance towards her office windows showed Lena that the sun had finished setting long ago; National City’s streets and skylines were blips of light on a black canvas, the evening traffic having already ended who knows how long earlier.
“I was just... checking in before I went home for the night.” Lena glanced at her clock - 8:37 PM, on a Wednesday night. “No Jess, you’re fine, I don't need anything, and I thought we talked about this, you should go home at six, there’s no need for you to stay so late.”
“Oh I was just finishing things up Ms. Luthor, you know how the paperwork here gets.” Jess smiled softly, adjusting her bag's strap on her shoulder.
It wasn’t exactly a ‘work appropriate’ discussion to have with your secretary, but Lena had been thinking of nothing else since Winn had left her office four hours ago. “Actually, Jess, I had a question. And it’s… it’s of a personal nature, so I understand if you don’t want to answer.” Jess nodded, encouragingly, maintaining eye contact. “Jess, have… have you ever reacted badly to something someone told you? So badly that, by the time you realized how much you overreacted, you were afraid it was too late to fix it?”
Jess shifted her coat in her arms, looking down at the floor, then back up at Lena. “Pardon my asking, Ms. Luthor, but… This is about Ms. Danvers, yes?” Lena could only nod, suddenly embarrassed. Jess took a big breath in, and let it out. “I’ve overreacted before, yes. But I think that the important thing is to keep acting in the best faith you can. Sometimes, that means prioritizing yourself; I’m assuming whatever happened between you and Ms. Danvers was serious, which is why she isn’t allowed in the building anymore. But, if your feelings have changed, or even if you think they’ve changed…” Jess shrugged. “What harm could talking to her do? Or you could write her a letter, my mom was always a fan of writing her thoughts down, then they wouldn’t get jumbled up and she wouldn’t forget to say anything she wanted to…”
Lena looked down to her hands, twisted in anxiety in her lap. She could hear Lillian’s voice in her mind, berating her as a child for showing such obvious signs of discomfort. She nodded down at her desk. “Thank you, Jess, I mean that. Emotional hand-holding isn’t part of your job description, but… well, thank you. And no, I don’t need anything else from you tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Jess nodded to her boss, and left the office, walking towards the elevators.
Outside, it had started to rain. Inside, Lena sat, quiet and unmoving, at her desk.
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It wasn’t until she was standing outside of Kara’s apartment door that Lena began to have second thoughts. Or, first thoughts, really. She stood, water dripping off her hair and coat from the short trip between her car and Kara’s building (the rain had intensified, and that storm had arrived), and realized, fully, what she was actually planning on doing. It had been twelve days, almost exactly, since that moment in her office. Almost two entire weeks of complete silence on Lena’s end of their 'friendship', if you could even still call it that. Kara had stopped reaching out after one week, leaving Lena one surprisingly long last email in her inbox, an email that Lena still had not gotten the courage to read, before following Lena's lead and going silent. She leaned her body up against the wall next to Kara’s door, running a hand through her wet hair. In fact, Lena hadn’t read most of the correspondence Kara had desperately thrown her way; every text message notification on her phone brought up unbearable memories of Kara’s sad eyes, every email that could be categorized ‘From: Danvers, Kara’ transported her back to that awful night in her office, the moment she had demanded Kara leave.
But after seven days of that, on that Saturday, Lena had woken up to… nothing. At least nothing new; she still had quite a backlog of messages. The only new text she got was on Tuesday morning, at 2:47 AM; she hadn’t seen it until 5:30 when she had woken up for work. And, since talking to Winn, she knew that it was probably a text Kara had sent while drunk, and possibly regretted. Lena hadn’t meant to read it, but the short preview her phone had shown her contained the entire message: “Im sorrry” The spelling error hadn’t jumped out to her at the time, Kara had never been the most concerned with proper spelling or grammar in her texting, but now, knowing the circumstances Kara had put herself through…
Well, that was why Lena had come here, standing outside of her door. But what was her plan, really? Show up at Kara’s apartment, at nine at night, and just barge in? For all Lena knew, Kara had started the difficult process of moving on from a loss of a friend; maybe Kara didn’t even want to be friends anymore, maybe she’d finally realized, after years of Lena being targeted by CADMUS and kidnapped by Lillian, that having Lena as a friend was a liability at best, a chore at worst, and that Lena distancing them was a blessing in disguise. Lena’s pulse quickened; actually, now that she thought about it, remaining friends with Kara, with Supergirl while her mother remained at large, and dedicated to eradicating alien life on Earth, was a stupid choice. God, Alex had been right, Lena knowing Kara’s true identity was a huge mistake. What was she doing here? She was an idiot, Kara would be safer and, in the long run, happier, without Lena in her life; the best thing to do was to leave, just go home and-
Kara’s door opened. “Lena, please don’t have a panic attack outside my apartment.” Lena jumped, looking to her right. Kara stood in the doorway to her apartment, in sweats and a dark t-shirt. Her right arm gripped her left elbow, and her eyes were aimed at the floor, not at Lena. But her voice was sincere, almost pleading.
Lena forced herself to take a deep, shuddering breath, and exhale through her nose. Three more breaths and she felt herself calming down. She had been well on her way to a panic attack, but even now being near Kara made her feel safer. “How- how did you know?” Kara laughed, bitterly. “I could hear your heart rate speeding up. Look, you came here to say something, right?” Lena nodded. “Come inside, I’ll make some tea. No reason to have a conversation in a hallway.” Kara turned and walked into her apartment. It wasn’t until Lena heard the faucet run that she realized she was still leaning against the wall. Slowly, she walked inside.
It was the same apartment; Lena didn’t know what she’d been expecting, it’d only been two weeks. The same pictures of Alex and Kara together, pictures of the family house in Midvale, the same DVD collection next to the TV, the same decorative pillows on the cushy chairs next to the couch. But, looking closer, there were some differences. The couch did have its same blanket on it, but it was draped over the length of it, falling onto the ground slightly, instead of folded on the back. What’s more, a pillow was on the right side of the couch, as if someone had been sleeping there. Lena glanced at the TV; it was paused in the middle of the Tin Man’s introduction in The Wizard of Oz.
“Careful, it’s hot.” Lena jumped slightly; she hadn’t heard Kara approach from the kitchen. She took the mug of tea and cradled it in both her hands. “Thank you. It smells wonderful.” Kara hummed in response. They stood, in the entryway to Kara’s apartment, closer than they had been in days, and yet the five feet between them felt vast.
Lena blinked, looking up. “You heard my heartbeat speed up? I didn’t -” but before she could continue Kara was interrupting.
“I’m sorry, Eliza always said I shouldn’t use my powers to invade others’ privacy, and that even if I did on accident I shouldn’t act on it unless it… Unless it was really important. And you were here, you are here, I don’t know why but I miss you and I didn’t want you to have a panic attack.” Kara looked at the floor, her arms crossed in front of her, a frown on her face.
“I was going to say I didn’t know you had super hearing. I knew about the flight, and the laser vision, and the strength and the speed, but… Well I suppose it would make sense that all your senses are amplified here.” Lena took a sip of her tea. Earl Grey, with a dash of milk, exactly the mix that Lena had made for Kara, once, when Kara had asked what her favorite type of tea was. “On accident? How good is your hearing that you could hear something you weren’t listening for?”
Kara sighed, her posture not loosening. “If I strain I can pick out specific conversations over at National City’s train depot from here. Normally I’m better at focusing on what’s just around me, on what a normal person would be able to hear, but-” she blushed slightly, her gaze not leaving the floor. “-I recognized your heartbeat when you pulled up to my apartment. I got so used to hearing it when we would eat lunch in your office, or when we would go out to dinner I guess I’m just more tuned into it. I’m sorry, I know it’s a gross invasion of your privacy.”
Lena gaped at Kara. The train station was, quite literally, across town from Kara’s apartment, at least two miles away. “Kara, that’s… that’s amazing.” Only Kara’s slight exhale indicated she had heard Lena; she continued to stare at the floor in front and to the left of Lena, and her expression didn’t change from it’s slight grimace. Kara continued to stare down at the ground, and Lena sipped her tea. If you had asked Lena before she arrived here, she wasn’t sure what she would have expected to happen, but… It wasn’t this.
“I’m glad you’re sleeping again.” She said softly. When Kara finally met her eyes in a confused glance, she continued. “Winn stopped by today. We chatted a bit and he told me. Well I guess technically Alex told me on Friday when she stopped by, but Winn let me know you started sleeping again.” Lena quirked her head to the side. “If you don’t mind my asking, why do you sleep? Alex said you don't technically need it, but... I was just wondering.”
Kara had broken eye contact when Lena had said Alex’s name, and at the question she turned and walked back into the kitchen. As she started to prepare a cup of tea for herself, filling a mug from the sink, she answered. “I- When I sleep, I get to dream. And sometimes, if I’m lucky, I dream of… I dream of Krypton. I didn’t leave until I was 13, so I still have memories of living there, but in my dreams it’s more… it’s more real.” She stared at her mug of tap water, and a small blue line appeared between her now glowing blue eyes and her mug; Lena couldn’t help herself, she inhaled in surprise. As steam started to rise from the mug and the glow faded from Kara's eyes, she looked up and met Lena's eyes, briefly. “And it’s technically heat vision, not laser vision. If I’m careful I can use it in all sorts of fun ways.” She smiled at Lena, but it was a sad smile, not the burst of sunshine Lena was used to seeing on her friend’s face.
Outside, the rain continued to pour down, wind gusting past the windows of the apartment. Lena sipped her tea, watching the water droplets on the window pane. All too quickly, the lull in conversation was turning from friendly to unbearable. For a moment there, it had almost been like it was.
“...I’m sorry.” There was almost a minute of silence before she said it, and after another twenty seconds of waiting for Kara to scoff in disbelief, to yell, to say ‘I forgive you’, to do something, she looked over to make sure she actually said it out loud; there’s no way Kara didn’t hear it, not this close, not when it’s this quiet. But aside from a tightness to her jaw, Kara hadn’t moved, still leaning against the wall, holding her still steaming cup of tea. Lena couldn't take it, couldn't bear this void between them.
“I know that must sound ridiculous, but I am, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for how I reacted in my office when you trusted me with something so important to you, I'm sorry for being so awful to you in my office that night, I’m sorry for how I didn’t respond when you tried to reach out again, and again… I didn’t want-” Lena cut herself off, realizing she’d been about to lie. “...I guess in the moment I wanted to hurt you, for you to feel as awful as I did, but clearly you were already hurting.” Lena huffed slightly, and crossed the room, ending up leaning on one of Kara’s oversized armchairs. She kept her eyes on the floor, unable to force herself to look at the blonde. “I know that you had good reason to not tell me; my brother’s a mass murderer obsessed with your cousin, my mom hates aliens more than she hates bad table manners, and even if you could trust me outside of that it’s just a numbers game, the less people who know the less risk you and your family are in.” She was rambling now, she could feel it, but at least it wasn’t so damned quiet in the apartment with her voice filling it. “When you told me I think I was more angry at myself, really. I mean, I’m supposed to be this genius, I’ve got four upper-level degrees, and my best friend-” As she said this, Lena was appalled to hear her own voice crack. Were her hands shaking? She was a Luthor, she wasn’t supposed to-
Her runaway train of thought was halted by Kara’s voice, once again. Glancing up from her empty tea mug, Lena saw that Kara had moved closer, and was standing behind her couch. “Lena, breathe. I forgive you.”
There it was, so simple. Kara had said it like it was the easiest thing in the world. Lena choked out a wet laugh. “God, I come here after ghosting you for almost two weeks, and you’re so… You forgive me in less than fifteen minutes.” She made herself look up, made herself meet Kara’s eyes, which she was surprised to see were also glistening with tears. “You’re so good. That was what Lex could never understand with Superman; he must have an angle to be doing all these things, it must be some sort of long con he's running. You know it made him crazy, but… And then there’s you, and you aren’t your cousin, you’re different, he’s so… almost cold. He knows he’s this symbol, he’s actively trying to inspire a nation with his every action and you can feel it just looking at him. But you chat with firefighters after you put out a burning building, you’re awkward on camera…” Lena looked back down at her hands. “I guess it makes sense; you were ripped from everything you knew when you were 13-” and god that was a horrifying thought that Lena was trying and failing to not dwell on, “- and you just want to be more human I guess. You’re so casual at times, in ways he never is. But you’re just as good, just as pure…”
Lena shook her head. “I really should have realized you were Kara Danvers sooner." She paused, trying and failing to collect herself. "You know you’re still the only other person besides me to eat food in my office? You’re the only person I text besides Jess, and I text her about work emergencies and she texts me to remind me not to work every Sunday. You’re-” and Lena gave up fighting back the tears she had been withholding since she started talking, turned her eyes towards the ceiling in a desperate attempt to salvage what the rain hadn't already ruined of her mascara. “You’re the only person who’s shared a meal with me since Lex was arrested. I don’t- this is it.” She gestured between herself and Kara, who had rounded the couch and was sitting, perched on the edge of it, arms folded in front of her chest. “You’re the only person I had in National City, the only one who cared if I ate, if I slept, and it- you cared almost as soon as you met me. And it was so easy for you.”
Lena sniffed, setting her mug shakily down on the coffee table. She managed to meet Kara’s eyes for a moment, which only sent more tears running down her face; Kara looked so sad, like she wanted to help so much, like Lena’s anguish was physically affecting her. “Lena, you don’t have to-” Lena held up a hand, taking in a shuddering breath.
“I do Kara, please, if I don’t say this now…” Kara closed her mouth, and reached out as if to put a hand on Lena’s knee, but withdrew her hand before it reached its destination. With a second deep breath, Lena continued. “And you weren’t trying to work any angle with me, you didn’t want anything in return for all the things you did for me, you just wanted me to eat, wanted me to sleep. You invited me to game nights, even though,” she shook her head. “Even though my brother is the only thing to even come close to killing someone like you, even though my name is synonymous with such hatred-”
At this Kara did grab her knee and oh, Lena had missed that warmth (was that a Kryptonian thing? Was Lena simply always cold? Thoughts for another time), had missed Kara’s casual physical contact. She leaned her knee into Kara’s hand. “You are not your family.” Kara said softly, and the look in her eyes was so gentle, so… so understanding.
“I suppose you would know something about feeling trapped by your family name.” Lena let out a soft laugh, wiping at her eyes. “You are amazing Kara Danvers, you know that? You betrayed my trust in a way only comparable to my brother lying to me about planning the murder of 38 people-” Kara’s hand started to move away, but Lena’s darted out and grabbed it, held it between both of hers. “-and by Saturday at noon I was already missing you. By Sunday I realized I had overreacted, had been horribly cruel to you. By that Monday I’d rationalized that your life would be better without me in it, without my family having any more reason to target you. And then Alex came, and told me you hadn’t been sleeping, and then Winn came…” Lena trailed off. She had no idea how to broach the subject she was about to bring up, and yet… it was the only reason she had been able to drag herself here; if Kara could forgive her, Lena had promised herself she would broach this subject too.
Outside, the wind had died down, the rain lessened into a softer, more consistent rhythm than the intense downpour it had been. Lena took a deep breath.
“I think it was the first time we went out to dinner that I knew.” Kara frowned slightly at Lena’s words, a confused wrinkle appearing between her eyebrows. But Lena held her hand firmly, and was consciously trying to breath slower, to keep her heart rate calmer, and so Kara seemed content to listen, for now. “I don’t even remember the restaurant, it was some upscale Asian place, and I had worked a horrific twelve hour day full of meetings with awful entitled old white men, and I was tired, but I hadn’t eaten and you knew that and you said you were fine with a late dinner… I remember, you were wearing that grey skirt with a navy blue top, you looked incredible. I got home from that dinner feeling so light, so much more relaxed. I think that was when I knew, or started to know. And then... you kept writing article after article about me, and they were so hopeful, so positive... It was so encouraging to finally have someone on my side, for once." Lena smiled, meeting Kara's eyes. The blonde smiled softly back, but the confused wrinkle hadn't left its spot on her forehead. "But you were also you, so adorably oblivious… I bought out almost an entire flower shop for you, and you thought it was ‘sweet’, which it was, but… I started to take you out on more dinners, on days I knew I wouldn’t be exhausted, to quieter restaurants with names like Le Coeur, or Amor. I wore my hair down, tried to be more forward than I already had been… Did you notice, at game nights, I only ever sat by you? I know that Nia noticed, she would always waggle her eyebrows at me when I’d lean on you, or scoot closer…” Lena finally released Kara’s hand, which drifted back down to her knee. Her own hands immediately became a tangle in her lap, a visual representation of her anxiety. “Kara, if we’re going to move past this, which I truly want to do, we need to be honest with each other, and if we’re going to be honest with each other…” Lena swallowed, inhaled through her nose. “If we’re going to be honest then I should start and say that I have been lying to you about our friendship for months too. You were the best friend I had in National City, the only best friend I’ve had since boarding school when I was 14, and… and I’ve been falling in love with you for almost a year.”
There. She’d said it. At some point in her rambling speech Kara’s hand had pulled away, and Lena could see that Kara was holding it in front of her mouth, as if she was trying not to interrupt. "I know cutting you off like that was horrible, and I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but even if you do give it, if you want to be friends you should know how I feel, and while I don’t expect you to return my-” And suddenly Lena’s words were cut off by Kara’s lips pressing against hers. Kara tasted sweet, like raspberry lip balm, and vanilla lattes, and there was a trace of salt where Lena could taste her tears. Kara was kissing her, and Lena was kissing back, her hands flying to the back of Kara’s head, the two of them pressing into each other with an urgency usually reserved for survivors in a desert who had finally found water.
After what seemed like hours, but was (probably) only minutes, they pulled away from each other. Kara rested her forehead on Lena’s, unwilling to move further away. Lena wiped at Kara’s mouth with her thumb. “God, I’ve gotten lipstick all over you…” Kara laughed, grabbing Lena’s hand in one of her own, and kissing her palm.
“It was a team effort, not just you. And I don’t mind.” Kara paused, still holding Lena’s hand. “I really am sorry I didn't tell you-” Lena pushed a finger against Kara’s lips, stilling them.
“Kara. I forgive you. If the past half hour didn’t convince you of that, then hopefully the past few minutes did.”
=========================
Outside, the rain continued to fall, settling into a soft background white noise for those still awake in National City. It was after ten, there weren’t many cars on the street, and not many lights still on either. But from the street you could see the lamp turned on in Kara’s living room, through the lines of rain droplets on the window pane. The rest of the city was at peace, and finally Kara and Lena were too.