Chapter Text
All the universe laboured to bring us together. The rest is up to us.
-Beau Taplin, Our Obligation
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The knock on the door should be ominous enough by itself. It’s two in the morning and Kara just got into bed after a long day at CatCo and catching bad guys.
Another knock.
A part of her, the part that is so incredibly tired tells her to let whoever is outside, there.
But what if it's Rhonda? Her old neighbor, who frequently loses her glasses and asks Kara for help to find them.
She doesn’t check who’s on the other side before opening. Alex would berate her for that but she’s always thought that is very unlikely for someone who’s planning to attack her to politely ask to come in.
However, this time using her x-ray vision could have saved her the stupid dumbfounded face she puts on when she finds Mxyzptlk in her corridor, watering Mr. Juarez laceleaf.
Mxyzptlk with a… mustache?
“‘Sup!” he says, throwing the water can behind him, and Kara watches it disappear into thin air.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to apologize, this time for real. Not that last time was fake but just that this time won’t be as disastrous. May I?”
Kara moves from the entrance on autopilot.
She should have learned by now to expect the unexpected but it’s been more than a year since she last saw him. He’s about the last person that would have come to her mind.
Mxyzptlk looks at ease in her apartment, walking around the place picking up trinkets and inspecting them with a clinical eye.
“Still so colorful and… mismatched.” he murmurs, putting the night lamp with rainbows Kara had bought in a bazaar in its place.
Kara narrows her eyes, she doesn’t have the energy nor the patience to hear a fifth-dimensional being criticize her decoration.
“I was about to go to bed so if that’s all you came to say. Please.” she gestures towards the door with her hand. “I had a rough day, more like a rough week and I don’t say this often but I need to rest.”
“I know , Kara. I’ve been watching.” Because that’s not creepy at all. “And a little bird told me you haven’t solved all your issues with miss Lena Luthor.”
Kara clenches her jaw. Lena is kind of a sore topic. They have talked, said their pieces, taken responsibility for their parts, and forgiven each other but things aren’t back to normal.
Yes, she is part of the Superfriends again, she’s back at game night, and they have lunch once a week to catch up. Despite this, they aren’t partners at Trivia or Pictionary, Lena hasn’t returned her unrestricted access to her office or apartment.
She knows that Lena trusts her with her life, there have been more than enough situations to prove it.
So yeah, Lena trusts her with her life but she doesn’t trust her with her time, she doesn’t trust her with her personal space or her unrestrained laughs.
Not quite, not yet. Kara knows it’ll take time. She doesn’t care, she will spend her life showing Lena that (alongside Alex) she’s the most important person in her life. Although, if she’s being honest, she would like to have the certainty that it will happen. That someday they will be back to what they were.
Not that she would stop if she knew they won’t. Lena deserves someone that will always fight for her, and Kara will be that person, she’ll be whatever Lena needs her to be.
“We are working things out.” she manages to say.
“Well, that’s why I’m here. I know things may seem bleak now, I’m gonna show you that there’s hope for you both.”
Kara crosses her arms and goes to sit on the armrest of her couch. “More possible realities? Because that went well last time.”
“No, not possible, actual realities. Other earths in which you are friends and well.”
Kara swallows, she has wondered about it a couple of times, especially after going through those alternative realities if they even crossed their paths somewhere else.
“Wouldn’t that be problematic for the inhabitants of those earths?”
“Fifth-dimensional being here, remember?” he says, playing with his hat and pulling a vase with plumerias out of it. “We won’t be physically there."
“The TV?”
“Nope. We’ll project ourselves there, almost like Miss Rojas VR lenses. We’ll see, hear, and smell everything there but won’t be able to interact. Like Scrooge’s ghosts. I'm your Christmas miracle!"
Kara deadpans. “But it's January.”
“A stupid month if you ask me. So what'd you say?"
Kara wraps herself tighter in her fluffy robe. “It wouldn’t affect anything here or there?”
“That’s right.”
She gulps. It won’t hurt anyone if she just gives a little peek into another earth, will it? And wasn't this what she had been looking for? A ray of hope, a boost to her confidence.
That's why she finds herself nodding, her sight lost, watching the scratched floor of her apartment but her ear focused on Lena's steady heart rate. She must be asleep.
"Okay."
"Perfect. Buckle up and grab my hand." Mxyzptlk exclaims but does it for her. "First stop, earth-62!"
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•earth-62•
Kara is muzzy after they 'land', she imagines this is what humans feel like after a teacup ride. The place they are in is too bright compared to the darkness of her home they just left. Mxyzptlk doesn't seem to have the same problem as her, in fact, he looks more put together than before and it takes her a minute to realize that the reason is that he changed his clothes for a black tuxedo. She looks down at her own clothes to find the same pajamas she was wearing.
"Oh, sorry. Did you want?" He points at her outfit with two fingers.
"No, it's fine." She dismisses him. No one can see her, anyway. "You said this is earth-62?"
He nods and starts walking down an indistinct corridor, Kara follows him.
“Things are a little different in this timeline.”
“Different how?”
“Lex Luthor didn’t go nuts and he’s now like, mmm like Iron Man.”
“Who?”
“Bad reference, he’s a genius playboy with a lot of scandals.” Mxyzptlk displays several tabloids and magazine covers in front of them with Lex’s name on the headlines. Alcohol, drugs, and orgy, are the most featured words in them.
She observes with distaste a picture of Lex with a toupee falling off his head and a beautiful woman to his side, both clearly inebriated.
“Just to clarify, he’s not evil?”
Mxyzptlk shrugs.
“I’ve heard all billionaires are evil but genocidal-evil? No.”
“Ok, two questions. First, how this influenced my relationship with Lena, and second, where are we?
“For the first one, you haven't met yet.”
“You said that we were on good terms in this timeline!”
“How better do you want it to be, you don’t know each other but…” he added upon seeing Kara’s murderous expression. “but let me finish because both answers intertwine. Lex is still leading LuthorCorp hence Lena didn’t leave Metropolis and continued working on her research and guess what? Cancer is cured! More like it will be, it needs some little adaptations but-”
“Really?” Kara can't help smile proudly, she always knew Lena would eventually do it. “That’s great but please, focus Myz.”
“We are in Sweden, Stockholm to be more precise.”
"Wait" she looks around and there at the back of the hall is an immense organ and below row after row of red velvet chairs. “Is this Concert Hall?”
“Surprise! We’re at the Nobel Prize ceremony." His hands do something that can't be described as anything but spirit fingers. "You’re the future winner of a Nobel Peace Prize, Lena will get hers on Medicine. God, your brains.”
"Wait, then that means we're both here… are we meeting today?" She asks with a tangle of nerves and anticipation already settled in her stomach.
"Yep."
“When?”
He turns to the right, the sign for the women's restroom is there and Kara is confused once again. "That would be about now."
Mxyzptlk nudges her closer to the wall on time to see a woman come out of the restroom in a hurried pace. Her dress is long and flowy with an asymmetric neckline, she can't see her face, just the pale skin of her nape and uncovered shoulder.
Kara doesn't need to, she could recognize her by looking at one sole of her fingers.
Lena is walking and searching for something in her clutch so she doesn't notice another person going in her direction, as distracted as her and thinking the other will be the one to step aside.
They crash but only one of them falls.
"Ouch, you're hard." Lena groans from her place on the floor.
The other woman gasps, Kara turns her attention to her only to find her doppelgänger with a panicked expression. There is something off with this 62-Kara and it takes her a hot second to realize that she is wearing her hair down in waves which is a main characteristic of Supergirl, her glasses, however, are sitting on the bridge of her nose as usual.
"I'm so sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Let me help you." 62-Kara apologizes and leans down to hold Lena by the forearms and put her back on her feet.
"Wow, strong.” Lena murmurs to herself and checks her dress for wrinkles. “No need to worry, I wasn't looking either."
She offers an easy smile and places one lock of hair that escaped her updo behind her ear.
62-Kara freezes when her eyes set on Lena, rosy cheeks and some stammering come next. It’s almost painful to watch and she tries to recall her first meeting with Lena (well, her Lena, not this equally stunning 62-earth version of her).
“Doctor Lena Luthor.” 62-Kara manages to say and fiddles with her glasses, a gesture that Kara recognizes as a sign of nervousness.
“Thank you for the title but you may call me Lena, Kara Danvers.”
Both Karas frown and point at themselves with their index finger. “You know me?”
"She knows me?"
Kara’s memory is almost perfect but she never knew how deep in her brain was Lena and everything related to her until now. 62-Lena is her Lena but she also is not and Kara can notice the small differences that talk of a different life and different choices. Like the inch-long scar on her jaw, it’s faded and mostly covered by foundation, and when 62-Lena lifts an eyebrow, the arch is less pronounced than the one she has seen a thousand times over the last seven years. It’s bizarre and fascinating.
“Who hasn’t heard of Supergirl?”
Hearing her superhero name out of the lips of this Lena gives her whiplash.
“Hold on. Is my identity on this earth not a secret?”
“Here’s where the story changes again. You're still a reporter but the plane where your sister was didn't crash so you never became a superhero although the name somehow found you."
"I'm a big fan of your work too." Kara hears her own voice and forgets about Mxyzptlk. "I read about your advances on transmatter technology and how it could be applied to help endangered zones and I think it's absolutely brilliant. Well, you are absolutely brilliant but of course, you know that or you wouldn't be here and- and I'm talking too much."
“I don’t ramble this much.”
Mxyzptlk squints one eye. “You kinda do.”
In front of her, Lena chuckles and 62-Kara blushes even more. "Thank you, Miss Danvers."
"Just Kara is fine."
"Then thank you, Kara. I would love to keep chatting but the ceremony is about to start and my fiance must be looking for me."
For the first time since 62-Lena appeared she notices the ring sitting on her left hand. Kara purses her lips. "Fiance?"
"There you are, love!" A grave and British accented voice calls. Jack Spheer is standing in his full bearded glory at the end of the aisle. His name has just been added to the steadily growing list of people she didn't expect to see today (or ever again).
Kara shakes her head. "Lena broke up with him on our earth, how's that they are engaged here?"
"Since Lena never left Metropolis they hadn't to." Mxyzptlk provides.
"Just like that?"
Mxyzptlk shrugs. "They also work together, that brings people close."
Jack chooses that moment to continue before Kara can comment on anything else. "They gave the second call. Everybody is taking their seats."
Lena nods in his direction, with soft eyes, and a smile. "Yes, I'll be with you in a minute."
62-Kara's sight follows Jack's retreating figure for a moment before going back to Lena.
"Sorry for literally running into you, it was a pleasure, now I'll go check if there's a sewing kit or something in this fancy restroom to fix my dress."
"What happened? Maybe I can help."
62-Kara moves her hand from where it has been covering her chest during the whole exchange. She is wearing a pearl dress with silver details but the fabric where the sweetheart neckline dips is torn, making her show more skin than she’s comfortable with.
“Manufacturing defect?” Lena asks with a questioning glance while she fiddles with the shoulder of her own dress.
“No, actually I was trying to pull a thread off and I think I may have pulled too hard.”
Lena furrows her eyebrows for a second and continues with what she’s doing.
“Well, I’m afraid to tell you that you won't find a sewing kit in there but this may do the work.” she says offering a four-leaf shamrock brooch with embedded emeralds and diamonds.
“Are you sure? Seems expensive."
"It's a loan, you'll return it to me later."
"Of course, I'll look for you after the ceremony." Her double says and takes the offered item between her fingers.
Lena waves her goodbye, she hasn't given as much as two steps before 62-Kara calls her again.
"Lena, congratulations on your win, by the way."
The woman tilts her head, the strand from behind her ear falls and hits her nose.
"I haven't won anything."
"I have no doubts you will."
There are small differences between 62-Lena and her Lena but the smile. That is just as bright.
"Likewise."