Chapter Text
Lena was not expecting to be dragged into the DEO when she went to L-Corp that morning. A morning full of meetings, avoiding a flying superhero in the afternoon, then spending the evening in her private lab, before drinking herself to sleep for a few hours before doing it all again the next day. Lena was not ready for Alex and five other DEO agents to burst into her office, Jess arguing behind them about ‘Miss Luthor is very busy right now’. Even less so was Lena expecting the words that came out of Alex’s mouth as she sent three of her people forward to arrest Lena. Lena was too stunned to protest the handcuffs slapped on her wrists or the agents leading her out of her office. She barely had time to give Jess instructions to cancel meetings and get Sam to take over for a few days before she was being carted down the hallway and led out by the authorities.
That was hours ago as far as Lena could tell. She has been in this interrogation room sitting across from Alex for at least the last thirty minutes. Arms crossed, Lena simply raised one of her eyebrows waiting for the redhead to start the conversation.
“I understand feeling hurt by Kara not telling you sooner about Supergirl. I even understand you wanting to make her hurt like she hurt you. Now what I don’t think is that you hate her, Lena.”
“You don’t know me Director Danvers. As much as you all think you learned when we were ‘friends’, you know nothing about me.”
“You felt used and betrayed by the one person you had become friends with- the one person who didn’t judge you for being a Luthor.”
“But she did judge me! She didn’t trust me! Time and time again she pretended to be my friend just to keep an eye on the new Luthor in town.”
“You really think Kara is capable of that? Of being deceitful, of using another person for her own gain?”
“Supergirl is capable of anything,” Lena seethed. “I knew from the moment she came with her God-complex after I made kryptonite that Supergirl and I would end up on different sides; that she never truly trusted me.”
“Kara trusted you explicitly! If anything, I thought she trusted you too much! It wasn’t the fact that you had kryptonite that made Kara weary of you either. She knew you created it for the right reasons at that moment.”
“She just thought I’d use it later on against her.”
“God Lena, are you that self-destructive?!” Alex threw up her hands. “She trusted you with kryptonite; she didn’t trust herself around you with it!” Alex held up a hand when Lena opened her mouth. “No, you get to listen to story time now.” Lena huffed and leaned back in her chair, raising an eyebrow when Alex didn’t start right away.
“Our first experience with someone manufacturing kryptonite was about three years ago with Maxwell Lord. He got the formula wrong somehow; instead of weakening Kara like the real thing, this version brought out her dark side.”
“What is this? Star Wars? Kara doesn’t have a bad bone in her body,” Lena said.
“Kara shows her optimism, her hope, but she’s still like the rest of us. She gets angry, she feels hurt, or thinks the worst of people. When you get angry you can throw a whiskey glass and all it does is shatter against the wall. If Kara showed her anger, her frustration? Pick any one of her abilities and imagine them used out of anger. Heat vision through walls, strength smashing anything she gets her hands on. Her first time coming in contact with a lab made kryptonite had her saying and doing every bad thing she’s pushed down.”
“You expect me to believe Kara went rogue?”
Alex pushed up her sleeve past her elbow and showed Lena a long white scar that puckered and went three inches up and down from her elbow. “I found her in her apartment that evening. She’d already thrown Mrs. Grant off the Catco building that morning then spent the rest of that day ‘cleaning up’ any disturbances Supergirl responded to in a violent way. I tried talking to her, she said things that we both were trying to ignore since we were teenagers. I went to stop her from leaving and she didn’t even try controlling her strength. Snapped three fingers and broke my arm in two places.”
Lena stared at the scar with wide eyes and her jaw open. Screw her etiquette or what her mother would think if she saw Lena's face at the moment. She couldn’t picture a world where Kara would ever hurt Alex. “Why have I never seen that before?”
Alex rolled her sleeve down and held her elbow in her hand, hiding the scar even with it covered by the sleeve. “Kara doesn’t know it scarred that much. She was so distraught when she came out of the Red K. She wouldn’t touch me for 4 months after, hugs didn’t come back for 6. She didn’t want to risk hurting me again. I always make sure it's covered when I’m around her.”
“When she first found out you created kryptonite in your lab, she trusted you to use it properly. She was scared of that .001% that it might have been a bad batch again; that she would be a danger to everyone she cares for. But here’s my question for you Ms. Luthor,” Alex leaned back, folding her arms across her chest, “why try killing Kara now?”
“I’m sorry, what?!” Lena jumped in her chair, her question coming out higher pitched at the end.
“Like I said, I get the whole ‘pretend to be friends’ thing you did, honestly it’s the level of petty I expect from an ex, but you never tried to kill her before. So why all the kryptonite now?”
It’s Lena’s turn to scoff and lean back in her chair. “Of course. Supergirl gets attacked with kryptonite and I’m suspect number one.”
“If you want to go all Luthor like your brother and attack Supergirl, that’s one thing.” Alex placed her hands on the table, leaning into Lena’s space. “You played on her goodness and hope in you. You took advantage of my sister’s love for you; I’ll deal with that later. Right now I want to know what else you gave her that has kryptonite in it.”
“I didn’t give her an-”
Alex slapped pictures down on the table of flowers, chocolates, and a note. Lena barely got a look before Alex is yelling again, pointing at individual pictures. “The same flowers you filled her office with! The same chocolates gifted after her article praising you for stopping your mom during Medusa, and the letter you wrote begging for forgiveness! We’ve destroyed the flowers, we’ve pumped her stomach, and yet she is still glowing green. WHAT ELSE DID YOU GIVE HER??!!”
“I didn’t give her-” Lena cut herself off this time. Her eyes had been darting between pictures, hands hovering, reaching out, but now she pulled herself back into a posture of indifference. “This is desperate even for you Supergirl,” she said instead, staring at the mirror. “I wouldn’t listen to your pathetic apologies and pleas anymore so you have your sister pull me in here with this stunt. What’s next? You come barging in to ‘save’ me from the big bad government?”
“This isn’t a game Lena. Kara is fightin-”
“Supergirl.” Alex raised a brow at the interruption. “She’s Supergirl. For all I know Kara isn’t even her real name. Is she even your sister?”
“Her name is Kara; it was the one thing she gotta keep from her dead planet. She’s my sister and I’m begging you for help. She’ll hate that I dragged you into this when she wakes up, but at least she’ll be alive to pout at me.”
Lena sat there for a moment, debating her next move. She kept looking between Alex, the pictures, and the two way glass. “Take me to her.”
“I don’t think that’s-”
“Look,” Lena interrupted Alex again. “I don’t even really believe this is real. So either let me see her on her ‘deathbed’, as you put it, or I’m walking out of here. Besides, I’ll need to see her to know what else might be poisoning her.”
Alex and Lena sat, eyes locked for minutes while Alex tapped her fingers on the table. Lena could tell Alex was searching for a way around the option, but Lena wasn’t about to back down. If Kara wanted to try pulling a stunt to get Lena’s attention, she would have to play hardball. Finally Alex sighed and stood, motioning for Lena to follow as she left the interrogation room. Lena’s lip twitched at the other two agents who fell into step behind her, not realizing that there had been guards outside the whole time. Lena knew the walk to the med bay wouldn’t be that long, but she wished she had used it to mentally prepare herself for walking into the room and seeing Kara.
A sob escaped her throat without her trying to suppress it- she didn’t even know it was rising until it was already out. The room felt more like a tropical greenroom than a medical room, but Lena didn’t care about the sweat beginning to form on her hairline, because there, under three sunlamps, was Kara. As she stepped closer, Lena noticed out of her peripheral Alex reach for her side gun but she was too focused on the blonde on the gurney. Kara’s skin was grey and clammy but the thing that disturbed Lena most was the amount of green lines that ran along the superhero’s face and hands.
“Kara..” Lena breathed out in a cross between a whisper and whimper.
“Different seeing your handy work in person isn’t it?” Alex’s voice broke the silence. Lena flinched at the bite in her tone but doesn’t remove her eyes from fluttering all over the blonde.
“I didn’t do this Alex. I wouldn’t..couldn't do this to her.” Lena choked back any tears starting to form. She didn’t deserve to cry for her friend. She’d hurt Kara so many times lately, physically and emotionally, but she never could have imagined the blonde brought so low. She never wanted Kara to fight for her life, just fight for her a little harder.
Lena blocked out the older Danvers while examining the one on the table in front of her. Nothing looked out of place, no cuts or punctures where kryptonite would have entered her. Kara was stripped down to a thin light grey sleeveless gown, giving the sunlamps the most access to her skin. Lena slowly reached out to touch a shoulder before she ran her fingers down to Kara’s clenched fist. A crease formed in between the billionaire’s brows as both her hands picked up the closed fist.
“What’s she holding onto?” Lena murmured, not caring if Alex heard or responded. Gently, she turned the fist over and one finger at a time opened the hand. Lena couldn’t stop the gasp that left her as there in Kara’s hand was a replica of a ring Lena recognized right away. She knew it was a replica because the original was sitting on a chain around her neck. Her mother’s twisted metal ring that Lena has kept with her since finding it in her childhood home. She’d never seen her mother without it when she was little, but for some reason her mother wasn’t wearing it the day they went to the lake. The last day she saw her mother.
“What is that?” Lena flinched at the closeness of Alex’s voice. The redhead had stepped closer in the time Lena took to open Kara’s hand and was now looking over Lena’s shoulder. Lena gingerly picked up the ring before placing Kara’s hand back on the table, and turned away to examine the fake more closely.
“My mother’s ring.”
“That’s Lillian’s and you decided to give it to Kara! Of course it’s making her sick!” Alex growled out, snatching the ring from Lena’s trembling fingers. “Connor, O’Neil,” Alex barked out, the two agents from earlier standing straighter. “Take Ms. Luthor to the holding cell down in detention level C.”
Lena jumped back into focus as hands grabbed her biceps. She scrambled for a moment as her feet were dragged before turning back towards Alex. “No, Alex. Alex! I didn’t give that to her. That’s not Lillian's!” By the time the agents got her to the med bay door, Lena chanced a glance back at Kara, struggling against the tight hold to see her. From the distance, Lena could see the green starting to fade before Alex stepped in the way, leaning over her little sister and smoothing out her hair.