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“What do you mean my account’s empty?”
The bank teller blinked, obviously unsure if she was being serious, then turned back to his screen, fingers deftly typing something in before he turned around and leaned against the counter, sighing at the printer as it took its time painstakingly churning out a sole sheet of paper.
“I mean that your account is empty. Your current balance is $5.28, Ms. Danvers, of which only—”
“Okay, okay!” She took the single sheet of paper the teller handed her with a little more force than strictly necessary, shoving it unceremoniously in her bag and letting out a huff for good measure—needing the teller to know how entirely unhelpful he was being. “You’re a real life Scrooge, you know that—” she paused, squinted at the nametag on the teller’s shirt “—Brian? A real life Scrooge.”
“Merry Christmas to you too, ma’am,” Brian said sarcastically, raising his eyebrows as Kara glared at him a moment longer. Briefly, only briefly, she contemplated punching his smug face—just hard enough to hurt, but not to damage.
She wished she’d gone ahead and done it several hours later, as she listened to her sister’s disappointed voice over the phone.
“I can just buy you a ticket and get you here—”
“—no, I can’t—”
“—Kara, I would barely notice—”
“—and that’s not the point and you know it,” Kara said, her tone final enough that Alex fell silent. “I came to National City to be my own person. I can’t do that if I let my mom or sister finance me when things get tough. I just…I just won’t come home for Christmas this year.”
“Kara…” Alex tried, trailing off when she got nothing in response. “Okay, okay. I’ll tell mom. But Kara?”
“What?”
“You know you don’t have to do anything alone, right?”
(Alex sounded sad and resigned and it hit Kara in the chest with the force of a freight train—and she had one experience with that feeling, thanks to some unsavory boys back in high school—because Christmas, from the day she and Alex became real sisters, was their thing . It was about fun and laughter and meetings on the roof with mugs full of hot chocolate, for a little bit of light when things had become intolerably dark.
Like the first Christmas after Jeremiah died.)
“I know, Alex,” Kara ended up saying, not exactly trusting herself with what she wanted to say (things like, she could just fly home herself, none of this nonsense required, if she wasn’t forced to keep her powers a secret). “I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Yeah,” Alex answered dully, not at all enthused with Kara’s lack of agreement. “Later.”
As Kara ended the call, her thoughts strayed back to Brian the teller. And once again, nose crinkled as her stomach churned uncomfortably at the thought of eating the same “just add water” meals tonight as she’d had every other night that week, she wished she’d just punched him. Her cheeks still felt warm from the shame that rushed through her as he barely concealed his mirth at her account contents.
Brian the teller? Brian the jerk more like.
In a moment of weakness, Kara was tempted to call Alex back and tell her to go ahead and buy the ticket, to email Clark back and tell him to send the contact information for that job opening he’d heard about in CatCo. Though she believed in asking for help, moving to National City had been about growth, about accomplishing something on her own merits.
To be broke and unemployed right before Christmas was just the result of her rather fantastic failure.
With a sigh and a desperate need to not give in, Kara dug through her kitchen cabinets, looking for the remainder of that alien alcohol Eliza had gifted her last Christmas. If she couldn’t be home for Christmas, she could certainly emulate her sister and deal with her problems with alcohol.
So, bordering on drunk and mouth watering at just the thought of her adoptive mother’s home-cooked Christmas meal, she found herself typing out an ad on Craigslist an hour later, chuckling to herself at all the imagined scenarios in her head. Biting her lip, Kara read the ad once more before putting it out on the internet for all to see, certain no one would contact her.
x
is ur family always talking about those damn aliens and how they should just go back to their own planet and not take ur jobs?
wanna really stick it to them? look no further!
I can either be openly alien the whole dinner, to make ur bigoted family feel inferior or dramatically come out when the subject is brought up
will charm the pants of everyone in either situation! Will also throw hands with anybody you want me to (i wont kill anybody or seriously harm them) (this goes doubly for homophobic family members if you’re a lady)
all i ask for payment is a plate (or 5)
if interested email me [email protected]
x
She got one email.
Well, no. That’s not true. She got so many emails. From weird, creepy men, all of which went straight into the trash.
But one email, one measly email, sat open in her inbox, Kara not quite sure what to believe. Because the email address belonged to a ‘ [email protected] ,’ and the only text in the body of the email was a phone number. But surely...well, surely Lena Luthor of LuthorCorp didn’t respond to her stupid, drunken Craigslist advertisement.
Did she?
Idly tapping her pen against her leg as she stared hard at her computer screen, Kara mentally weighed the odds of it actually being Lena Luthor, and the pros and cons of calling her. She was stuck in National City because of the “no powers” rule set by Clark and the Danvers. It was the absolute opposite of what they’d want for her to waltz into Luthor Manor, self-proclaimed as an alien. After all, the Luthors...well, the self-explanatory stay away was so self-explanatory that even Clark hadn’t bothered to lecture her on that rule.
(But then, it was really Lex Luthor, not the whole family. And Kara had read articles about Lena, about her philanthropic work, and there was just something...different...about her.)
She tapped her pen again, this time so hard that it snapped in half against her leg, one piece flying across the room, the other hanging pathetically from her hand. A call couldn’t hurt, she thought. A call to make sure it wasn’t a prank, a call just to be sure she had the cell number of one of the most intelligent people in the world, a call to hear Lena Luthor’s voice.
(Because Kara had read articles about Lena Luthor’s work, had read her dissertation and marveled that a human could be so far beyond the rest of her species, had watched her interviews—and well. Kara had a thing.
A small thing. But a thing .
And she really wanted to know if the person who’d answer if she rang the phone number in the email was the person she’d admired from afar.)
(Kara sort of wished she hadn’t finished off the last of her alien alcohol the previous night—she could’ve used that liquid courage now.)
“Sorry, Clark,” Kara mumbled under her breath as she picked up her phone and dialed the number, listening to the ringing with her heart in her throat. “Pick up, pick up, pi—”
“Hello?” came the voice on the other line, and Kara’s heart stopped.
It was Lena Luthor.
x
Sitting across from Lena at some high-end restaurant she’d never have visited on her own was a strange experience.
Having Lena stare back at her with a curious and perplexed expression was practically surreal.
“I was drunk when I wrote the advertisement,” Kara said, if only to break the silence.
“I was drunk when I responded to it,” Lena answered smoothly, taking a sip of her water, her eyes never leaving Kara’s face. “You’re really an alien?”
“I really am. And you’re really Lena Luthor?”
“It isn’t obvious enough?”
“Cat Grant is dying to get a one-on-one interview with you, you know. I hear you’ve been difficult to work with lately, and refuse all calls from any journalist.”
Lena’s eyes narrowed. “Are you a journalist?”
“I wish. I’m unemployed, hence the ad.”
“Listen, Kara,” Lena began bracingly, setting her glass of water to the side and leaning forward on her elbows. “I know when you posted the ad you weren’t thinking of someone like me responding to it.”
“Well, I wasn’t thinking much to be honest,” Kara tried to joke, and though Lena offered her a smile in response, Kara could tell it was forced.
“I just, I don’t expect you to go through with this. You must know about Lex and his new, well, preoccupation,” Lena continued, almost as if Kara hadn’t said a word.
“I know he’s made it rather public that he doesn’t like aliens,” Kara said softly, breaking eye contact and playing with her fork. “It’s a lot of unkind words.”
“It’s more than that, actually,” Lena said, shaking her head. “Lately he’s been...driven. He says he wants to run for office, on a platform of keeping aliens out of our country.” She bit her lip, eyes roving Kara’s face as though she was looking for any judgment, any inkling of dislike. “His real problem is with Superman, I think he’s intimidated. But I know him. If he can see that aliens are just... normal —I can get through to him, Kara. I know I can.”
“Superman?” Kara repeated, choking a little bit on air. “Lena, that’s nice and all, but there’s a problem,” Kara said with a mirthless laugh as she picked up her fork and bent it in half with her thumb and index finger. “I don’t think your brother will feel all that generous towards Superman’s cousin.”
“Wait. You’re—But— seriously ?” Lena finally settled on, looking at Kara with wide eyes. She recovered admirably quickly, shaking her head and refocusing. “That’s even better. He can see that even aliens like Superman, or his cousin , are just people. And by pretending to be dating me—”
“—I don’t know if that was in the ad—”
“—we can also make my ex-girlfriend jealous and annoy my mother. One stone, three birds.”
Kara blinked, momentarily stunned.
“That’s, um, well. That’s a lot of expectations for someone off a Craigslist ad,” she joked weakly. “I’m not sure—”
“—when I responded to your ad, I didn’t think anything would come of it,” Lena interrupted, waving the waiter off as he approached their table with water refills. Kara suddenly wished they’d ordered before having any of this conversation. “But you’re literally... perfect ,” she was breathless as the last word slipped past her lips, almost as if without her consent. “If there’s anyone who could open my brother’s eyes, it’s definitely you.” As if she could see that Kara still wasn’t convinced, she hurried on. “And in addition to the five plates of Christmas dinner, I’ll give you an interview. About anything you like. No topics barred. Use it to get a job with The Daily Planet or something.”
“You’d—wait, how did you know I wanted to write?”
“I’m Lena Luthor,” she responded with a roll of her eyes. “You think I didn’t immediately track you down and find out everything there was to know about you before coming here?”
“Well, you didn’t find out everything , did you?” Kara challenged, feeling pleased when a red tinge appeared on Lena’s cheeks. “But you’ve got yourself a date.”
Lena smiled wide, clearly pleased. “Well all right then. Here’s what you need to know….”
x
She realized this whole thing was probably a bad idea when she arrived at the manor—filled with several dozen men and women in fine clothes and what seemed like millions of flutes of champagne, the manor decked out in Christmas decorations, filled with lights, mistletoe, and red and green—and the first thing out of the mouth of the man walking in next to her was, “I’m only glad that Luthor has already said it’ll only be our kind tonight.”
“Frank, it’s Christmas,” said the woman next to him tiredly, “try to have more Christmas cheer.”
“Do you think they even know what Christmas is, Miranda?” Frank muttered back, looking askance at the woman next to him. “Who knows what they celebrate on their own planets.”
“If they’ve spent even a day on this planet during December, I’m sure they know what Christmas is.” She patted him on the shoulder gently, meeting Kara’s eyes briefly and making a face, as if she’d heard this speech before and didn’t want to hear it again. “Try to focus on something else, dear, we wouldn’t want your blood pressure to go up again.”
Frank grunted, but he seemed to agree with her, mumbling about how he was hungry and offering his arm for her to take and leading her inside. Kara swallowed hard, balking at the whole exchange. She began to wonder if she should cut her losses, skip out on what (judging from the smell) promised to be excellent food, and just bail.
Before she could overthink the whole thing, however, she felt a brief, soft touch at her elbow, making her turn to the smiling face of Lena Luthor. She was wearing a suit—tight pants and a green pocket square and heels that made Kara wince in sympathy—with her hair pulled back, eyes much more green than the day they first met.
“There you are,” she breathed, eyes looking Kara up and down, smiling a little wider.
(Kara, who couldn’t afford a plane ticket, had panicked about a week ago over what she could possibly wear to this thing. Finally, after a moment of sheer terror of the dirty looks she’d get if she came in her favorite pair of slacks and fitted button-up, she’d called Lena and asked for her help.
And boy did Lena help.)
“There are no subway stops near here,” Kara said apologetically as she nervously wiped her hands on her pants, her heart hammering away for some odd reason. She was grateful, not for the first time, that humans were delightfully ordinary and couldn’t notice it.
Lena’s smile shifted to a frown. “Subway? You...did you walk here? The last stop is miles away.”
(Walk? No. She may have broken—bended?—Clark’s rules just a bit and had flown.
In her defense, her shiny Oxfords were far too fancy to walk in, and she couldn’t possibly afford to replace them if she somehow ruined them.)
“You look really nice,” Kara said, ignoring Lena’s question and grinning at her instead. “And we match.” She gestured to Lena’s green pocket square, then her own red one. “It’s very...couple-y.”
“Well, that’s good,” Lena said, eyes still curious even as her smile returned. “That’s the aim, after all.” She looked over at a group of older men and women who were eyeing the two of them with poorly disguised interest and sighed gently, eyes growing downcast. “You still have time to back out, you know. I wouldn’t even blame you if you did.”
“Don’t be silly,” Kara said, somehow needing to cheer Lena up. “I’m your date, it would be rude of me to leave you now.” She held out her arm, raising an eyebrow when Lena didn’t immediately take it. “Come on, Lena. I think I saw someone carrying around some shrimp, and I wouldn’t put it past stupid Frank to eat all of it before the rest of us get a chance at it.”
Lena laughed, less at Kara’s griping at Frank and more out of what seemed to be pleasant surprise, and she took Kara’s arm, her fingers curling around Kara’s bicep. “Well,” Lena said with a grin, winking at Kara, “I have it on good authority that there are also potstickers, your favorite.”
(And if there were any words in the English language that would have Kara fall in love, it was those.)
x
If she had to guess the moment it all went wrong, she was pretty sure it was when Clark spotted her.
(Or, maybe a little before that, when Lillian Luthor looked over at Kara and Lena and had pointedly turned away to speak with someone else, something that had Lena digging into Kara’s arm with her fingers.)
It was honestly sort of a shame, because prior to that point, things had been pretty nice. Lena claimed they had to mingle, but had offset that horrible reality by waving down the waitstaff to pretty much constantly bring Kara food and drinks. After she’d learned that alcohol didn’t affect Kara at all, they had fun with it, having Kara down several flutes of champagne in front of increasingly horrified guests, who then seemed impressed that Kara could still string a sentence together. In all honesty, it was probably the most Kara had laughed in months .
And then came Clark.
To his credit, he managed to hide his shock quite well. She was pretty sure his eye twitched as they ran into each other (almost literally, saved only by Kara’s quick sidestep, glad she managed to keep her shrimp on her small plate), but otherwise his face remained impassive.
“Kara, what—”
“—Mr. Kent—”
“—Clark—”
The three of them spoke at the same time, stopping abruptly and looking at one another, Clark and Lena sharing almost identical looks of confusion. It was Lena who recovered first.
“It’s nice to see you chose to accept Lex’s invitation, Mr. Kent,” she said smoothly, turning a bit to eye Kara searchingly. “And it seems you already know my date, Kara Danvers.”
“Date?” Clark repeated, sounding a tiny bit strangled.
(Every single time Clark—and Alex —told Kara to keep hidden , stay low-key , suddenly flashed through Kara’s mind, and she was rather sure if Kryptonians could have died from sheer shock, Clark would have keeled over right at that moment.)
To his credit, Clark seemed to gather his wits remarkably quickly. “Of course I know Kara, she’s—” He cut off abruptly because, right in that moment, faster than any human eye could see, Kara stomped hard on his foot, making him let out an odd grunt as Lena looked on, totally unawares.
“We met once. Through Lois Lane. You know, she’s a big Superman fan,” Kara explained, forcing a smile on her face and hoping Clark played along. She could practically see the gears turning in his head as he attempted to put it all together.
“Oh,” Lena said, looking pleasantly surprised, “that makes sense. Especially considering you and Lois are so similar, given your dreams of becoming a journalist and connections to the Man of Steel himself.” The way she said it—an inside joke, clearly referring to the fact that Kara had already told her she was related to Superman—nearly made Kara groan because she knew Clark finally caught on.
She could tell by his dark look.
“If you don’t mind, Miss Luthor,” he began, eyes on Kara rather than Lena, “can I—”
“—hey, um, why don’t you go mingle some more and I’ll meet you after I’ve picked Mr. Kent’s brain about a potential job at the Planet ?”
Lena began to frown, something like concern flashing in her eyes, but she didn’t have time to figure out an excuse to stay behind. Frank—miserable, blessed Frank himself, a man Kara would never slander again—chose that moment to make his appearance, clearly a little bit drunk, his wife Miranda trying her best to keep him from embarrassing them.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Clark grabbed Kara by the elbow and pulled her out to the balcony, closing the doors behind them before rounding on Kara.
“ Date? Seriously, Kara? You’re dating Lena Luthor , and you’ve told her you’ve got a connection to Superman?”
“First of all, it’s just one date, not dating ,” a truth she hated to admit, because quite frankly she knew which one she’d prefer, “and I may have told her Superman’s my cousin. Which is why Clark Kent can’t be.”
“You what ?” Clark hissed, fingers raking through his hair. He looked sort of nauseous at the very thought, and Kara felt a tiny bit bad for him. He’d managed to keep his secret identity, well, secret. And here was Kara, waltzing into the Luthor home, on a fake date with Lena Luthor herself and chatting amiably with professed alien haters like Frank, all the while preparing to spring the ‘I’m an alien’ information at the most opportune moment. “Kara...you know that Luthor is running for office and his entire platform is hating aliens, don’t you?” He looked close to crying. “This is absolutely the worst place for you—for me! Neither one of us should be here.”
“That’s what this is about, Clark. Lena wants to change Lex’s mind. She thinks—”
“—she thinks what? That having an alien girlfriend will make Lex hate aliens less? Kara, if anything that just puts a target on your back—”
“—she’s not my girlfriend, and it’s only one night—”
“—and you admitted to the most notorious anti-alien campaigner’s sister that you’re Kryptonian, meaning that—”
“—he can’t do anything to me, and you know it—”
“— Rao, Kara, he has kryptonite , why do you think I’m here?”
For a moment, they just stared at each other, neither one of them sure what to say next. Then Kara groaned, collapsing heavily onto one of the benches situated on either side of the balcony doors.
“How do you know?”
“That he has kryptonite?” At Kara’s nod, Clark scratched at his chin and came to sit next to her. “There were a string of bank robberies. Really easy stuff, amateurish. I didn’t think anything of it until I started feeling a little off after one of them fired a shot at me.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box, giving it a shake and rattling it. “Lead lined,” he said in explanation, handing it over to Kara. “Inside, there are the pieces of the kryptonite that Lois had to dig out of me.”
“That’s gross.”
Clark ignored her. “We got one of the robbers talking, traced it back to the Graves siblings and Luthor.” He took the box back from Kara, shoving it back in his pocket. “I did a sweep of LuthorCorp last week when he held that press conference. And when he invited me to this…”
“...you figured you could sweep the manor too,” Kara finished for him, nodding. She stared at him, focusing on the slouch of his back and the weariness on his expression, and she realized that for the first time, he wasn’t putting on an act. He genuinely was worried and exhausted. “Let me help,” she said after a long moment. Clark huffed.
“Help? You’ve already made it ten times harder, now I have to worry about your safety too.”
“I’m not a child, Kal-El,” Kara snapped, temper flaring for a moment. “Look, I’m here to help Lena piss off her mother and ex and to maybe get Lex to admit he’s wrong about aliens. I can help you find the kryptonite too.”
“Let’s talk about you being here with Lena ,” Clark started, eyes narrowing a little. “What were you thinking, telling Lena Luthor of all people who you are, letting her bring you to her brother ?”
“Lena’s not like that,” Kara defended, getting angrier. “She’s a good person.”
“And you can tell from what? This one date?”
Kara didn’t even hesitate when she answered: “Yes, absolutely.”
For whatever reason, this shut Clark up, and his eyes softened, resignation replacing the lingering worry.
“Okay,” he said, shrugging.
“It’s that easy?”
“Yeah, Kara. It’s that easy. You trust her, that’s good enough for me.”
(Kara briefly wondered where this confidence in her was when she first broached the topic of superheroing with him, when he flat out wouldn’t even consider her using her powers, when he instructed her as a teenager to pretend, pretend, pretend .
But she wasn’t about to question the confidence either.)
“So let me help,” she pressed, grabbing his wrist. “Please, Clark. I can help.”
“How? This whole thing was a waste of time anyway, the kryptonite is clearly kept in something lead-lined, and I can’t get away from Lex long enough to search properly.”
Kara opened her mouth to respond—wasn’t sure with what yet, perhaps some stellar plan that would come to her out of nowhere—but before she could say anything, the balcony door opened and Lena stepped into view. She looked over at them with wide eyes, and just by her heart pounding alone, Kara knew she’d overheard more than she should’ve.
“He’s here,” Lena said, her voice sounding off, clearly speaking to someone else. Two words, that was all she offered, looking from Kara to Clark as if needing them to catch on quickly. Kara and Clark got to their feet, but just as Lena opened her mouth to say more, they were interrupted once more, this time by a tall, bald man that was unmistakingly Lex Luthor himself.
(He had a chilling air about him, something that his creepy TV appearances did not do justice.
And all Kara could think about was how Clark’s face transformed into a bored expression, tugging his hand out of Kara’s grasp, just a second too late: Lex had already noticed.)
“Clark, there you are, I’ve been looking all over for you,” Lex said, some glint in his eye as he looked from Clark to Kara to Lena. Clark must have noticed too, because he let out a laugh that Kara was rather sure only she could tell was fake.
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I just ran into Kara here and had to speak with her. Kara, this is Lex Luthor, I’m pretty sure you know of him. Lex, meet my cousin, Kara Danvers.” The glint in Lexa’s eyes faded just as soon as the word ‘cousin’ came out of Clark’s mouth, and Lena’s eyes—which had been wide already—widened further before she managed to look away, clearly attempting to school her expression.
(Kara made a mental note to thank Clark later, to tell him how much it meant to her that he’d expose his identity to Lena just because Kara said she trusted her, just because he believed that it was worth it to protect the two of them from whatever Lex had wanted to do.)
“Ah, Kara Danvers, my sister’s newest...distraction,” Lex said, smiling and holding out a hand for Kara to take. She stared at him for a moment and instead reached out to wrap an arm around Lena’s waist.
“It’s a very nice party you’ve thrown, Mr. Luthor,” Kara said, heart nearly stopping when Lena chose to lean closer to her, to press their sides tightly together. “It’s almost like you’re fundraising for a campaign.” Clark, in an undertone the two Luthors couldn’t hear, told her to knock it off , but Lena tugged Kara’s arm more securely around her waist, tracing a gentle pattern against the back of Kara’s hand with her finger.
“Let me guess, you’re a journalist too,” Lex deadpanned. “Must run in the family.” He gave his sister a searching and vaguely suspicious look. “So, how long has this been going on? You haven’t mentioned,” his eyes briefly found Kara, flitting up and down, almost as if in distaste, “ Kara to me or Mother.”
Lena didn’t seem bothered at all by his tone. “You and Mother have never taken much interest in my romantic life, Lex, what’s changed now?” Lena hand grasped Kara’s, grip tightening each moment Lex was silent, but then he let out a jovial chuckle, a warm smile replacing his dark look.
“Kids, right Clark?” he said, shrugging and turning to Clark, as if expecting him to agree. Clark let out an awkward chuckle, but it seemed to satisfy Lex regardless. “In any case, while you were out here skulking with your cousin, Perry White and Cat Grant showed up. They’re having an argument over whose publication is better, but between you and me, what we can create will put the rags they call papers to shame forever.” He gestured towards the door, clearly expecting Clark to go back inside with him.
“You go ahead, one more quick word with Kara and I’ll catch up,” Clark said, charming and unassuming and putting up the best act Kara had ever seen.
If Lex was disappointed in any way, he didn’t let it show. “Oh, very well. I’ll see you back inside. Kara,” he turned to her with a frozen smile, “it’s been a pleasure.”
He didn’t even look at Lena before turning around and heading back through the doors. Kara let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.
“So...is it just me or was it definitely not a pleasure?”
“Kara, focus,” Clark rushed, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses without taking them off first. “There’s no way I can get away to search the manor now. We should call this off, fake sick and go home, try again some—”
“—no, you said it yourself, he has kryptonite and it’s dangerous.”
“He’s not going to let me out of his sight, and now that he’s met you, he’ll be keeping an eye on you too.”
“I can help,” Lena cut in before Kara could argue, before she could try to come up with something else. She looked from Clark to Kara with a pleading expression, something like resignation in her eyes, as if she was sure where the conversation would end up going, but couldn’t help but try anyway. “I don’t know what kryptonite is, but I know the manor. The trick would be getting away to search. Kara and I could do it.” She took a deep breath, focusing all her attention on Kara. “Do you trust me?”
For a moment, there was silence, but then Kara nodded and the beginnings of a smile tugged on Clark’s lips.
“Be careful you two,” he said, reaching out to squeeze Kara’s shoulder before slipping the small lead box containing kryptonite into Kara’s hand. “ El mayarah. ”
“ El mayarah ,” Kara repeated, feeling a surge of affection for her cousin when he gave them one last grin before leaving them alone on the balcony to rejoin Lex. “So,” Kara said, pulling away from Lena and shrugging at her, pocketing the lead box. “What’s the plan?”
Lena’s eyes were bright when she answered. “Ready to take this fake date to the next level?”
x
Lena handed Kara another plate of food, waving Kara’s thanks away, searching the room with her eyes. “Remember, if you feel uncomfortable, we can—”
“—Lena, relax,” Kara interrupted, trying hard to take manageable bites so as to avoid bulging cheeks. “We got this.”
“Yeah, we. You, me, and your super cousin—”
“—well, we try to keep the super part on the down low—”
“—I’ve had three separate assasination attempts, and this is the most outrageous thing that’s ever happened to me,” Lena continued, clearly not listening to a word.
Shelving aside the casual way Lena mentioned three attempts on her life, Kara reached out to take one of her hands, squeezing briefly. “Maybe I should remind you that if you feel uncomfortable we can still back out of this.”
“Funny,” Lena said, eyes still roving. “Are they in place yet?”
Kara blinked, swallowed her food quickly, then honed in on the corner of the room, where she’d been trying to listen to Frank’s drunken conversation with Lex and Clark. “Lex is sufficiently distracted, yes,” Kara said, feeling almost charitable towards Frank suddenly. The drunker he got, the more she liked him. He was now expressing his misgivings with Lex’s campaign—“Listen. Listen, Luthor. The aliens aren’t so bad. Miranda is right, it’s Christmas , let’s have some cheer”—while Clark listened in silence and Lex made a series of non-committal grunts. “How did you know Lex would get cornered by Frank?”
“Because it happens every year, it’s why I make sure to invite him,” Lena responded, shooting Kara a grin. “Though I do wish he didn’t need the liquid courage to do the right thing,” she added after a beat, frowning. She raised an eyebrow, as if to say ‘ what can you do? ’ then took a deep breath. “Are you ready?”
“Born ready,” Kara said, immediately regretting her nerdy statement and setting her empty plate stack aside. “I knew theater in high school would pay off.”
Lena didn’t respond. Instead, she grabbed Kara’s hand, tangling their fingers together, and pulled her through the room. They bumped into as many people as they could, stumbling over their feet, letting out not-so-suppressed laughs, making sure to be seen with their heads tucked close together.
(This was part one of the plan: sneak away from the party, as two slightly tipsy lovebirds are wont to do.
All they needed was for everyone to notice their not-so-subtle escape, witnesses who would roll their eyes and tell Lex about how inappropriately his younger sister was behaving with her girlfriend, and did you see the way they had their hands all over each other?
Lena assured Kara that Lex would seethe with anger that his sister embarrassed him at his campaign fundraiser event, but he wouldn’t go looking for her after noticing they were missing—and if he did, they had a ready made excuse.)
It was only after Lena had led them down four separate hallways and the sound of the music and the gentle murmur of the party had dwindled down to almost nothing (for Lena at least, Kara was still listening closely to Lex and Clark, who were now chatting with Cat Grant), that they stopped. “Okay, we won’t have too much time. Even if Lex is unwilling to come look for me, my mother won’t have the same reservations. Can you,” Lena waved her hand awkwardly, “narrow down where we have to look?”
“Do you want me to use my powers? Again?” Kara mock-gasped, already sliding her glasses down, looking through the walls, ceiling, and floor in all directions. “You have a lot of Lex-statues,” she commented lightly as she searched, “kinda creepy.”
“I don’t live here anymore, Kara, and even when I did, I had no say in the decorating choices,” Lena said, though she sounded a tiny bit amused. “Well?”
Kara pushed her glasses back into place. “Below us, there’s a staircase that leads to a room I can’t see into. My best guess would be to search there.”
“Strange,” Lena said, frowning. “The only thing down there is a wine cellar.”
Kara shrugged, motioning for Lena to lead the way. They didn’t speak as they walked, Kara just a step behind, staring at the back of Lena’s head, at the sway of her hair, trying not to be weird and inhale just a bit deeper through her nose so that she could catch another whiff of Lena’s perfume.
(Lena’s steps were sure, strong, confident. The way she held her shoulders, the tilt of her chin, all indicated someone who was aware of their self-worth, who knew they were special.
But Kara had felt the way Lena’s grip had tightened on her hand when they stood in front of Lex, had heard the unsure and nervous tenor of her voice during their first meeting, when she told Kara about Lex and seemed like she was just waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Kara to get up and leave.
How inspiring, Kara thought idly as they walked, for someone to be so brave even when they were endlessly afraid.)
After what felt like centuries of twists and turns in the labyrinth-like manor, Lena finally came to a stop in front of what seemed to be a very ordinary door. But when Lena made to push it open, it didn’t budge. “Odd, I don’t remember this door being so heavy ,” Lena said under her breath, pressing against the door with her shoulder and trying again.
“I got it,” Kara offered, grinning at Lena and pushing the door open with a simple hip check.
Lena’s eyes went wide with excitement. “That’s fascinating, how much force can you exert on—”
“—we can sit down and talk all about it once we find the kryptonite,” Kara gently reminded her, motioning for her to move on ahead. She stepped in behind Lena, letting the heavy door slide back shut with a soft thud, taking in her surroundings with a slight frown. “Has your wine cellar always been, well, like this? There’s, um, no wine.” She gestured weakly around. The walls were covered with sleek sheets of metal—lead, Kara assumed—and the rest of the room was full of tables laden with designs and schematics and half-completed experiments, desks stuffed with paper and littered with broken pencils (as if someone snapped them in half out of frustration), and at one end of the room, a large whiteboard was covered entirely by news articles relating to Superman.
Lena wasn’t listening. She’d already begun digging through the papers, eyeing the schematics and designs with a certain bit of distaste coloring her expression. “Lex must have converted it into a makeshift lab,” she said finally, turning to look at Kara. “Perhaps he figured there wasn’t enough privacy at LuthorCorp for this work.”
“Which is what, exactly?” Kara asked, though she was fairly sure she already knew the answer. Lex was one of the more advanced humans, but his paltry inventions were nothing compared to what Kara worked with on Krypton. His designs were nothing more than crude death traps intended for Clark.
“I hadn’t realized he was so far gone,” Lena murmured, coming to a stop in front of the whiteboard, the evidence of Lex’s crazed obsession. “Your cousin was right, I did put you in danger by asking you here. Lex was never going to change his mind, and you…” Her hand twitched, as if she wanted to reach out to Kara, but thought better of it last minute. “I may as well have put the target on your back myself.” Lena’s eyes seemed suspiciously watery, clearly close to tears. “God, Kara. I’m so sorry, what was I thinking? I’m a Luthor .”
Kara’s first urge was to step forward and pull Lena into a hug—a real hug, arms wrapped tightly around her—but between Lena’s slightly labored breathing, the way her hands clenched into fists as she crossed her arms over her chest, and the fact that she refused to even meet Kara’s eyes anymore made it clear that a hug was the very opposite of what Lena wanted.
(And there was a part of Kara—miniscule part, really—that worried should she pull Lena into her arms now, she’d never want to let go.)
“You’re the only Luthor I ever cared about,” Kara said, aiming for casual and thinking she probably missed the mark by a wide margin. She cleared her throat awkwardly, choosing to busy herself with looking for the kryptonite as she spoke, unwilling and unable to make note of Lena’s reaction. “Ever since I landed on this planet, Clark has been telling me what to watch out for, how to keep myself hidden. About a year ago, when Lex first started his anti-alien crusade, the whole Luthor family was added to the list of things I was lectured about.” Lena didn’t say anything, and Kara chanced a glance over at her, quickly averting her gaze when she realized Lena was staring intently at her. “But I’ve been following you since you were, what, fifteen? And landed on the cover of Scientific American . All I could think was wow . You were human, just human. But so much more .”
Lena made a strangled noise, almost as if her first instinct was to downplay her accomplishments and had to push down the words before they made their way out. “I was sixteen. And I wasn’t on the cover, my work was.”
“I followed everything after that. Your work on sustainable energy, every single publication you’ve ever had your name on, watched both of your TED Talks—more than once,” Kara continued, not acknowledging Lena’s comment with more than a smile. “I was in the Science Guild on Krypton, you know. Or well, was on track to be. And Rao , you would’ve fit in so well with us.” Finally Kara stopped and turned around, meeting Lena’s gaze evenly. “I know what your last name is, Lena. But I’ve always admired you , the scientist and businesswoman.” Kara shrugged crookedly. “So don’t you dare apologize. I wanted to be here. With you.”
“Kara, I—”
“—hey, do you think that’s it?” Kara interrupted with a grin, pointing to a small safe tucked away under one of the desks. Without waiting for an answer, Kara bent down and tugged on the safe’s handle, grinning wider when it swung open easily. And there, glowing a malevolent green, was the kryptonite.
Lena must have noticed the way Kara grimaced and swayed a little, because she crouched down next to her, pushing her gently to the side and taking Clark’s lead box, depositing Lex’s store of kryptonite safely with the rest of it. “I’d have to conduct more studies, but it seems almost radioactive to you. There may be a way to neutralize its effects.” She handed the box back over, smiling when Kara pocketed it, then helped Kara get to her feet as the effects of the kryptonite began to fade. “You know, I’m really glad I drunkenly responded to your Craigslist ad,” she said suddenly, smile widening, and Kara couldn’t help but laugh.
“I’m really glad I drunkenly wrote it.”
x
They nearly got away with the whole thing.
Just as they were about to round the last corner to the hallway leading them back to the party, Kara heard it—the whispering, the unmistakable voice of Lillian Luthor herself. Kara stopped suddenly, grabbing Lena’s jacket sleeve and tugging her to a gentle stop as well.
“Does the name Mercy mean anything to you?” Kara asked, tamping down the urge to readjust her glasses nervously when Lena’s eyes found hers and just...stayed.
“She and her brother work for Lex. Mercy Graves is, well, difficult.”
Kara bit her lip, releasing Lena’s sleeve. “Well, just down the hallway and to the right, she’s blocking our way back to the party with your mom.” Kara forced a smile and shrugged. “They’re definitely not happy from the sound of things.”
Oddly enough, cool-under-pressure-Lena disappeared, replaced by frantic-Lena who looked at Kara with wide, panicked eyes. “They know, they must know. My mother tracking me down so I won’t be an embarrassment is one thing, but dragging Mercy with her? She must suspect, she must—”
“—hey,” Kara interrupted, grabbing one of Lena’s hands. “Relax. Do you trust me?”
Lena blinked, eyes wide and expressed a tiny bit dazed. “I trust you more than one logically or reasonably should after a single fake date to my family’s Christmas party turned campaign event turned spy mission.”
“Huh.”
“What?”
“Well, it’s just that...you babble. Almost as much as I do.” Kara didn’t wait for Lena to respond or react to her comment, feeling an edge of worry as the seconds ticked on and Mercy suggested going looking for Lena herself. “Play along, okay?”
She waited long enough to get a shaky nod, then tugged Lena closer and kissed her.
(There was a method to her madness, Kara thought defensively as she nearly swooned into Lena’s mouth when she kissed back. It wasn’t as if she was taking advantage , even if she was rather sure she’d wanted to do this since the first time she’d watched one of Lena’s TED Talks.
So yes, perhaps the plan meant she was able to bring one hand up and cup the back of Lena’s neck, the other bracing Lena’s waist as she guided her down the hallway towards Lillian and Mercy. But if anything, her plan worked too well. She was distracted enough by the way Lena’s hands came up to grip the lapels of her suit jacket, addled enough by the way Lena’s mouth moved against hers that she forgot for a second what she was actually trying to do, finding herself pressing Lena against the wall, going for—)
Lillian Luthor cleared her throat loudly and Kara pulled away as if shocked, briefly meeting Lena’s eyes (feeling a bit of panic when she couldn’t read Lena, couldn’t gauge her reaction) before turning to her mother. “I see you’re... enjoying ...your evening, Lena,” Lillian said, tone cold.
Lena needlessly straightened her clothes, smoothing out wayward strands of hair. “Ah. Mother. Mercy. Having a nice time?” Lena asked, smiling benignly, as if she hadn’t been caught making out with a random woman at her brother’s campaign fundraiser.
Lillian wasn’t as impressed with Lena’s nonchalance as Kara was. “Lex told me about your... date ,” Lillian continued, nodding over at Mercy who pulled out a tablet. “I took the liberty of digging into Miss Danvers.”
“I don’t really—” Lena began, but Mercy spoke over her.
“Mr. Luthor was suspicious,” she said loudly, making Kara wince as she noticed they’d begun attracting attention from the partygoers. Frank and his wife were watching from several feet away, behind them Cat Grant looked on with narrowed eyes, as if she could sniff out a story developing. “So I looked into it for him.” Mercy made a big show of scrolling through something on the tablet, looking up and staring directly at Kara. “It seems Miss Danvers here doesn’t have a single cent to her name.”
“That’s not fair,” Kara interrupted, feeling a surge of indignation, ignoring the jab at her side (Lena’s attempt to have Kara stand down, most likely). “For your information, I have five dollars and twenty-eight cents.”
“Right,” Mercy sneered, clearly close to rolling her eyes.
“I don’t see what Kara’s bank contents have to do with—”
“—don’t be so obtuse, Lena,” Lillian said, motioning for Mercy to step forward. “Clearly this woman has seduced you in order to pocket items from Luthor Manor she can sell off.”
“Seduced?” Kara repeated incredulously, just as Lena laughed in disbelief.
“You can’t be serious,” she started, but Lillian waved her off. Their onlookers had grown into a small crowd. Perry White had appeared next to Cat, several couples whispering under their breath as they watched.
“If Miss Danvers has nothing to hide, I’m sure she won’t object to a search of her person,” Lillian said smoothly, raising one eyebrow.
“Don’t be ridiculous, this is beyond—”
“—of course not,” Kara cut in, making a big show of straightening her coat then reaching over to Lena and sliding a hand comfortingly down her back. “Search away.”
“Kara,” Lena tried, looking at her with wide eyes. “There’s—”
“—nothing to worry about, I know.” She looked back over to Mercy and Lillian, holding out her arms and raising her eyebrows. “I’ve got nothing to hide.” Lillian’s eyes narrowed, but she still motioned for Mercy to step forward. Kara grimaced slightly as Mercy patted her down, even going as far as dropping to the floor in her dress to check Kara’s lower legs. When she was done and stepped back, shaking her head at Lillian, Kara grinned. “See? I’ve taken nothing that doesn’t belong to me. No thieves here.” Lillian opened her mouth—to justify or to apologize, Kara didn’t know and didn’t care—but Kara spoke up before she could say anything, seeing an opening to at least get one of the things Lena wanted done. “Let’s be real, the only reason you suspected me of anything is because you’re bigoted and you hate a—”
“—Australians!” Lena cut in loudly. “Kara is Australian and you hate it, don’t you, Mother?”
“What on Earth are you talking about?” Lillian scoffed, but from behind her Frank was shaking his head in disappointment.
“First the alien talk, now they hate Australians. Come on, Miranda. It’s time to go.”
Lillian turned around, noticing their onlookers for the first time, breath hitching when she noticed both Cat Grant and Perry White. “There’s been a misunderstanding,” she began, walking over to them, her best smile plastered on her face, Mercy following closely behind.
Kara watched with some amusement as the crowd dissipated, people mumbling about Australia, Lillian’s attempt to explain what happened to Cat and Perry clearly going poorly, until she was alone again with Lena. “I thought I was supposed to help with your family’s anti-alien sentiment. I wasn’t aware there was anti-Australian sentiment, too. You know I’m not Australian, right?”
“They’re too far gone,” Lena said softly, her eyes sad and distant when she turned to Kara. “I couldn’t let you risk yourself, put you in danger, just for a chance to get one over my mother and brother.” After a moment, she seemed to come back to herself, confusion flooding her expression. “I thought for sure we’d get caught. What happened to Clark’s box?”
Kara grinned and slowly reached into Lena’s jacket pocket, pulling out the box. “Human eyes are so slow,” she said. From way across the room, where Clark and Lex had mercifully remained throughout the entire encounter, Kara heard her cousin stifle a laugh and whisper ‘ well done ’ under his breath, so lowly only she could hear. She didn’t think she could feel any better, any warmer, and yet, she was proven wrong when faced with Lena’s astonished smile, her immediate jump into just how fast Kara could move.
As far as Christmas parties went, it was one of her favorites.
x
Sitting across from Lena at Noonan’s, a place Lena would likely never have visited on her own, was a strange experience.
Kara was polishing off her second sticky bun, trying hard not to eye Lena’s untouched one, and wondering if she could flag the new waitress down without drawing Lena’s attention to it too much. Before she could come up with any plan, Lena set her coffee cup down and pushed her sweet towards Kara with a soft laugh.
“Eat as many as you’d like. I’d be fascinated to learn more about your diet anyway.”
“Not that interesting,” Kara said, smiling gratefully as she pulled Lena’s sticky bun onto her own plate. “Mostly potstickers, pizza, and doughnuts. And the high-caloric energy bars Clark gets specially made from Wayne Enterprises, though we haven’t figured out how to get it to taste better than cardboard yet.” As Kara fell silent, the soft instrumental version of Silent Night ended and was replaced by the upbeat All I Want for Christmas is You , making Kara blush at the accuracy. “So?” she said, reminding Lena they were here because she’d emailed Kara several days after the party, asking to meet up. “Want me to be your fake date again?”
“Have you heard the news?” Lena asked instead of answering, leaning to the side to pull something out of her bag. It was a rolled up newspaper, and she pushed it towards Kara without explanation, waiting for her to unroll it and read.
“ Luthor abandons bid for office ,” Kara read aloud, “ apologizes for anti-alien rhetoric .” She nearly laughed at Lois’s byline, wondering how much info Clark gave her himself, then skimmed through the article. “Wow. Lots of quotes from Frank,” she commented, looking up at Lena.
“Yes. Apparently, it was ‘the treatment of the Australian girlfriend’ that ‘really put things in perspective.’ He gave details about years of things Lex has said and done.”
“Every minute that passes is a minute I like Frank even more. Good for him,” Kara said with a laugh, setting the paper aside. “You have more news,” she guessed when she met Lena’s eyes.
“Yes,” Lena said slowly, biting her lip before leaning in. “The PR for LuthorCorp has been a disaster. And the board has, um, unanimously voted to replace Lex. With me.”
“You’re joking,” Kara managed, feeling awed and proud and excited all at once. “That’s amazing! You’re going to be incredible, I can only imagine—”
“—Kara,” Lena interrupted, looking so very fond, “no one knows about this. It’s just me and the board right now—”
“—yeah, yeah, I got it, of course,” Kara said quickly, holding up her hands. “Keep it mum until you break the news.”
“No,” Lena said patiently, “this is your exclusive. This is for your interview with me. You get to break this news. Along with the renaming of LuthorCorp to L-Corp, which I think is the best for the company, really. New CEO, new name, new direction.”
Kara’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly several times, frozen with shock. “Oh, Lena, that’s—um. Wow.”
“You’d rather stay away from my family, right?” Lena guessed, totally incorrectly, pulling back and expression shuttering closed. “I understand, that makes total sense—”
“—no! I mean, stop. Please. It’s not that.” She heaved a breath. “I’m working for CatCo now, as Ms. Grant’s assistant—with the promise of moving up to reporter one day—and she has...stringent ethics standards for her employees.”
Lena frowned. “I don’t understand,” she said, head tilted to one side. “What does that have to do with the interview?”
“I don’t want the interview, Lena,” Kara said, something about her expression keeping Lena curious and not offended. “I couldn’t be impartial. Not about you.” Something like comprehension dawned on Lena’s face, her eyes softening slightly, but Kara gathered her courage, needing to be direct. “I really like you. Really like you.”
“I don’t think your cousin would like knowing you have feelings for a Luthor,” Lena said, but Kara could hear the way her heart pounded, could see the tears in her eyes, and she knew better than to be fooled by Lena’s dread over her last name.
“Clark likes you too. Not in the same way of course! That would be awkward. Really weird. But he does, like you, I mean. And trusts you. And he said he was looking forward to more awkward Christmas parties with you—not to assume anything! I mean, maybe you don’t want anything to do with me , after all I didn’t manage to help with any of the things you wanted help with on our fake date—I’m really sorry for that by the way, I—”
“Kara?” Lena cut in, waiting for Kara to pause and actually take in a deep breath. “I can’t believe you said I babble nearly as much as you, because that was... quite the babble.”
“Right. Yeah. It just, you know. Comes out.”
“We should talk about it,” Lena offered, smiling. Kara straightened in her seat, nodding, pushing her glasses back into place. “How about over dinner? Friday night?”
Kara thought she actually might have been struck with a Christmas miracle. “That sounds really good.”
“Great, it’s a date,” Lena grinned, flagging down the waitress and indicating for her to bring three more sticky buns. And it may have been the song or the promise of sticky buns, but Kara was pretty sure she was falling in love. “A real one this time,” Lena added, winking.
(Make that definitely sure.)