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The ‘24/7 Coffee, Eggs, and Love’ sign in flickering blue neon - alongside the best phallic graffiti small town teenagers have to offer - did not do wonders at marketing the dingy, gas station adjacent diner to anyone other than those on the road in need of caffeine. It had quite literally been months since Faith had served anyone other than a bearded, hat-wearing trucker, with her most interesting customer this side of the New Year being a polite German tourist.
It’s therefore safe to say that when Supergirl - big city hero Supergirl - strolls through the door and orders two coffees and a plate of bacon, Faith quite eloquently loses her mind. Emmylou’s calling from the stereo over the counter while an alien produces a handful of bills from her left boot; the bacon’s starting to sizzle, and all poor Faith can do is wonder how the weirdest Thursday night occurring this end of Utah is taking place over the ketchup bottles she needs to refill.
It’s only as her lone customer tips a few into the ‘with love’ jar and turns to sit in one of the three booths, that her brain starts to catch up. The hero seems mighty perturbed for the Girl of Steel, real morose as she gets a good look at the peeling red and orange leather across from her - and while the interior décor is admittedly a touch dated, it’s surely not that depressing. It’s unsettling, how subdued and slumped she is compared to the winning smiles and proud stances on the news.
Her voice had been softer than expected, polite thanks and rough edges, and she had stood with an awkwardness reminiscent of someone twice the size of their peers. As if she was painfully aware of how her presence dwarfed the rest of the room and wasn’t quite sure if keeping her head down or standing proud was the best option to make it less… weird.
Faith can almost hear her mother, Christian as the sky is blue, chastising her nosiness as she takes mental notes, but really - who wouldn’t be a tad bit in awe.
She plates the bacon - “as much as you can fit on a plate, please,” she had said - and walks the mighty 6 steps needed to cross from wall to wall. Standing this close to her, even with the slight slouch and well-mannered half-smile, has the hair on Faith’s arms on end. She thrums with power, strong jawed and aged eyes that Faith avoids contact with, focusing on mechanically moving each mug individually off the tray so she doesn’t catch her mind stuttering over how much death and power and destruction the knuckles of the hands calmly splayed on the table had seen. The blood of how many different species was on that suit.
Faith likes to think she does a good job of polite and sure, sue her, slightly fearful avoidance - admittedly though, she isn’t quite as successful at hiding the repulsion on her face as she watches a goddamn superhero pour six sugar sachets into each of the two coffees.
She cleans the stove without a word and the Girl of Steel consumes enough caffeine and sugar to match a cracked horse in equal silence, and Emmylou’s still singing of buffalos and Texaco’s as the sound of crispy bacon eaten by hand fills the home of the greasiest floors in Midvale.
She leaves with a polite nod, a twitch of the fingers as if she doesn’t quite know if the average human being expects anything else after plating for an alien, and the bell dings as she walks out. Faith can see her shoulders tense beneath the dim blue light outside as she draws herself taller, and assumes that within a minute she’ll be two states over.
As said; the weirdest Thursday night this end of Utah.
-
Of course, as is Faith’s luck, it happens again. Two months later, give or take, and October’s marking the trees near the gas pumps with trenches of rotting leaf litter. It gets cold suddenly, and she finds herself drinking much more coffee each weekday night shift to compensate. The last wave of tourists looking for red rocks and dry forests was a while ago with the shift in weather, and even the road trip goers from down South moving through to Wyoming have been dwindling.
Business isn’t too good, but Faith’s not paid to give a shit about the books outside of counting energy drink change, and she quite appreciates the lack of families - they barely have space for the till on the counter, let alone six children.
Tips are shit though, which isn’t working wonders for her ma’s birthday coming up soon. Might have to take up a couple Saturday nights the next month, is what she thinks to herself as her most remarkable customer announces her return with the dinging of the bell over the door.
Good fucking lord the alien’s back.
A presence as humbling as ever, jaw squared and shoulders set beneath a cape just settling from the cold outside, dusting the floor. The empty diner seems to shudder slightly with her entrance, the flickering neon glowing through the window pane catching the metal accents of her suit in an eerie blue, the broadness and uncomfortable stillness of her frame ever so noticeable against the animated trees across the road, entranced by the wind.
She’d be a mighty sight terrifying if it weren’t for how her shoulders relax as she takes a step closer to the warmth of the kitchen, and that same unsure twitching of the fingers.
Faith holds herself together a touch more impressively this time, nodding in affirmation with the repeat order and the same generous tip, and sets to the bacon while the hero lurks. And god, it’d be smart to just serve the goddamn alien and leave it be but Faith’s never been the best at self-preservation.
“What’s Midvale to you?” she asks, staring real intensely at the coffee pot and pretending she’s not keenly aware of the eyes on her. A part of her instantly regrets it, but a part of her is annoyed that she feels so on edge in the diner she knows better than her own hands.
A hum behind her, the creaking of leather indicating her patron’s seated.
“Old haunt, I guess.”
Now it’s Faiths turn to hum, painfully aware of how manually injecting casual conversation into an encounter with someone that makes her palms sweat is not a successful anxiety reduction method. She pours the coffee - yes, still two mugs - and neatens the side of cream. She turns, drinks plated, and finds the eyes she could feel on her counting trees out the window.
Same six sachets of sugar per cup, dental health isn’t a joke kids.
The hero sits in silence, slow and quiet, sipping through the first of her coffees, and Faith plates the bacon to Buckley on that same tinny red stereo, and the sound of her own thoughts. Thoughts mostly relating to the dozens of half-baked, CNN sourced reasons why the girl of steel is spending the midnight hour in a diner surrounded by miles of Midvale and highway.
She serves, wrings out a washcloth, and averts her eyes from the sickening amount of condiment applied to the plate of… 2 dozen? Maybe more? Bacon rashers. She tries not to think about how many lonely people she meets at this hour, and how the girl in front of her - she doesn’t look much older than Faith, Jesus - is possibly the most peculiar and lonely she’s encountered yet. News outlets dedicated to her life, millions of lives inspired, and this is where she chooses to be. Now seems to be a good time to clarify that the bacon is not good bacon, nor is the coffee good coffee, and the service is also pretty shoddy, as Faith will happily admit.
Quite the mystery.
Supergirl nods thanks and her fingers are always goddamn twitching, and Faith waits a few minutes on empty tiles before she clears the table.
-
The third time she arrives, it’s early November, snow dusting her boots as she enters. She politely drags them on the “Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Dessert” welcome mat and Faith’s keying the order in before she finishes placing it.
The trees outside are bare, skinny and dusted with white. The streetlights down the highway glow soft and warm, a couple flickering, and one out for what must be 6 months now. Cars are rarer, and are only going to get more scarce over the next month with the ice - the boys who are in most Tuesdays for pancakes reckon only another 2 weeks before the heavy snow falls, and Faith’s not looking forward to freezing toes off on the walk to her car at the end of each shift.
She makes herself a coffee in preparation for the twice-monthly, 5 a.m. order she’ll finish her shift unloading, and - not for the first time - wonders what drives her most interesting almost-regular to her counter.
It’s quite a peculiar thing, watching an alien in skin tight blue and red tap along to Born To Run, but Faith supposes everyone’s a little less intimidating waiting on an ungodly order of bacon three hours past midnight, and lets it slide.
-
It becomes a regular event. By mid-December she comes in at least once most weeks. Usually there’s little conversation, never anyone else around for miles, and without fail it’s the exact same order. Faith wonders on more than one occasion if the emptiness and privacy - side from a tired waitress - is what draws her back so often, if she uses whatever heightened senses she must have to ensure isolation.
The more frequently the two find themselves alone in the diner together, the more relaxed the hero becomes. Still fidgeting, still a touch clumsy - how the hell is someone with super speed so absurdly flat footed? - But calmer. An easy, bizarrely human grin in greeting most nights, and once she honest to god whistled along to some shitty country song.
Faith too, feels less on edge. It’s one of those wonderfully funny occurrences no one would ever believe if she tried to explain.
“You know our coffee’s really not that good.”
A hum from the booth Faith has her back to - conversation is rare and stinted, but not wholly unwelcome.
“Cheaper than the city though.”
“I didn’t realise superheroes had to count cents like the rest of us.”
Said superhero grins, bacon now in front of her, and its only after she’s piled a god awful amount of ketchup over the plate that she replies, “Even I can’t escape rent.”
-
With Supergirl now considered a legitimate patron - Faith is still processing this - it’s only natural that she keeps a closer eye on the news. It’s impressive and a touch unnerving, watching her sip from her stained mug when the whole world watched her slaughter some supernatural beast in the city centre the morning before. It’s not something she ever asks about - Faith’s mother having done too good a job with manners - and not something Supergirl ever offers. She wonders how tiring it is, being known and worshipped by a planet of people who know nothing of you, and doesn’t do much more than watch the alien in silence.
“That much sugar’ll rot your teeth.”
No response side from a small laugh, and an extra sachet.
-
Faith’s at the diner - because isn’t she always at this stupid minimum wage job frying goddamn eggs, even on motherfucking Christmas - when the muted box television next to the stereo shows Supergirl - two coffees and as much bacon one plate can carry - falling limp and carving a crater in the concrete upon impact.
She abandons the stove to cut the music and unmutes the news. Live feed, apparently. Fuck.
The image shakes, officers dressed in black obscuring the view and attempting to herd the crowd away with little success. The footage is grainy but unmistakeable - Supergirl, her image streaked red with blood, lying still and not getting up.
Faiths heart sits in her throat as tinny sirens on screen swallow the room, the F-150 owner waiting on his omelette staring with just as much shock.
When the image cuts a minute later and they queue up better quality video of the fall with grating commentary as if the poor girl who tips double spread unconscious is nothing but fodder for speculation and smart headlines, Faith thinks she might be sick. ‘Girl of steel struck down in freak alien combat’ runs the bold text underneath a slow motion zoom that captures the hero’s unsettlingly relaxed fingers, reaching upwards as gravity drags her down, and it is made very apparent in this moment how little respect the dying moments of an alien are offered.
God she better not be dead.
There are only so many times she can watch the body fall, lifeless by the time she hits the ground, before she turns back to the burnt omelette and starts anew, stomach turning.
What the hell has the strength to punch Supergirl unconscious?
Her hands shake as she pours the eggs, sirens still echoing from the box in the corner, and she sends a silent prayer to the lord her ma wishes she thought of more that the alien’s not kicked the bucket.
-
And, of course, she isn’t dead. Superhuman stuff - you wouldn’t get it.
She looks a mighty bit like a kicked puppy though, that’s for sure, when she turns up what must’ve been a week into the new year. Suit and cape as proud as ever, but pale. How Faith found herself serving a glum superhero in the quiet hours semi-regularly she’ll never quite understand.
“So you’re not dead, then,” as she rings in the till and spikes the receipt with the others. “Was worrying I’d lose my best tipping customer.”
She grins, looking half the sunny and sickly sweet smile she wears during those interviews that loop the news for days. “Takes more than that.”
Bacon bacon bacon bacon two coffees.
-
It’s pretty much business as usual after that: a superhuman gets out of town for some peace and quiet, and a 22 year old who should probably call her ma back watches her drink coffee at a temperature that’d burn any human tongue.
It still gets the hairs on the back of her neck raised though, at times, observing so much power in one being. A couple times she didn’t bother walking the ten steps away from the store front before flying off, and Faith damn near had a heart attack at the sudden rattle of the windows. It takes a ruptured ketchup bottle for Faith to realise that the constant tension, the permanent edge to the woman seated at the same booth every week, was restraint. Holding back inhuman strength with slow and measured movements, every step slightly mechanical. It’s an uncomfortable realisation, noting five finger mark shaped notches underneath the table during her once a month deep clean when she bothers to wipe the legs down.
-
Their first more remarkable conversation occurs when Supergirl rocks up, casual as can be, on a fine Wednesday evening as Spring starts to bring leaves to the highway trees and trucks to the road, with blood all over her. As in, the extra-terrestrial who’d only been known to bleed once, upon being decked with a mighty hook off the side of one of the tallest buildings in sunny Californian National City. And that is a mighty amount of blood for someone invulnerable, even if said individual is acting mighty undisturbed by it.
For fucks sake the floor was just cleaned.
“Bathroom’s round by the window,” she says, because what the hell else do you say to a goddamn superhero dripping blood on your tiles as you make her coffee(s).
It’s laughable watching the Girl of Steel visibly process the mess she’s making in stages of realisation, guilt, and a silently mouthed “whoops”, the weirdly comic act rounded off with hesitant finger guns across the seven steps necessary to reach the bathroom.
Why the hell she was here, of all places, and not like… a superhero healing chamber? Was a question Faith pondered with mild annoyance as she put the bacon on and got her mop back out. Stupid goddamn aliens.
Said stupid goddamn alien is forgiven when the guilty look on her face is seen once she comes, slightly limping, out of the bathroom. And also when she tips possibly the most generously anyone in this fine establishment ever has - a proud $30.
She sits and apologises around her bacon, and Faith rolls her eyes and feels a lot like her mother, Christian as the sky is blue, telling her to take better care of herself and stop dosing on too much sugar and that it’s late and she should go somewhere where she can bleed in peace and Faith won’t be dealing with said blood.
It’s funny, chastising someone older, maybe not much older, but who feels aged in the decades.
“I don’t really have anywhere to go and bleed peacefully.” Breaks the silence now Supergirl’s got one mug left and Faith’s round the counter organising receipts as her shift neared an hour off being over.
She looks up, confusion definitely showing with the cocked eyebrow, “They don’t have some sort of facility for you or nothing?”
Silence stretches as the girl of steel stares solemnly into her coffee, “Not anywhere peaceful.” She shrugs, “Besides, flesh wounds, I’ll be fine soon as the sun is up.”
It’s sombre, a superhero flaked with dried blood and red fingers, choosing Faith of all people to share this lonely solace with. She lets the minutes pass, the clock passing 4 a.m. and a motorbike going by. If she were one to jump to assumptions then she would’ve been sure the woman in the red and orange booth flinched with the noise.
“When I’ve had a shit go of it, I sleep. You should go wherever you call home and crash out, okay? You look like shit and I’ll be real uncomfy seein’ you on the news later having seen you like this.”
God, she really does feel just like her mother.
The superhero’s looking at her, head cocked, looking like she might say something mighty meaningful for a few seconds when Faith ducks back up from under the counter where she was sorting the pans. But in the end she just nods, brings her mugs over to the counter and thanks her, moving towards the door with a funny smile on her face. She waves, twitching fingers finally setting on the right human custom, and disappears into the early morning dark soon enough.
-
Things are different after that. Not quite friends, but much more familiar. Here is the superhero who starts to sit outside as the weather warms and the single pair of chairs is no longer damp or icy, and here is the waitress who occasionally joins said superhero with a smoke.
“You always lived in Midvale?” Supergirl asks in the early morning humidity. It’d been raining a fair bit the days before, and the lack of breeze made the air thick.
“Born ‘n’ raised. Ma moved up from South. Needed money, though sometimes I think half the reason she moved was to argue with Mormons.” The weirdness of these conversations has long ago been lost on Faith. “I’d wing a wild one and assume you don’t fancy clueing me in on your history round here?”
“Not if you don’t fancy a stack of NDAs.”
Faith couldn’t for the life of her tell if that was a joke or not. She settles on a half-smile and sipping her coffee.
“History aside, it’s peaceful. Quiet. The city’s loud - doesn’t always work well with the heightened hearing. Also the trees smell nice.”
The mention of super hearing piques interest, but Faith won’t ask. It’s a fairly obvious recipe for a headache, and it isn’t polite to pry.
Faith hums, “The trees are pretty cool,” and lights her cigarette.
-
“You got family other than your mother around?”
A colder night, earlier on into her shift. Supergirl sits indoors and watches her replace coffee filters. She’s got what looks like ash dusting her shoulders, and Faith had made it very clear to her that she wasn’t welcome anywhere near the food along the counter reeking so much of smoke and dusting soot.
“Not really. Dad skipped soon as he could, no clue where. A couple cousins, much older though.”
The superhero hums, friendly eyes and fingers tapping on the table. She’s turned in the booth to face her, sticking out as much as any alien does in nowhere Utah. “Was it tough on her?”
“Who, ma? Can’t say she loved him fucking off into the blue, but she does good these days. Was her idea I pick up shifts in this shithole a few years back, actually.”
They go quiet, relaxed to the same country songs that play every evening and stand witness to their occasional moments of companionship.
“There’s a girl back in the city. I think me being around is tough on her sometimes.”
Jesus Christ this job did not entail superhuman love lives-
The look on Supergirl’s face kills any cosmic humour Faith might’ve gone looking for in the absurdity of the situation though.
She’s still turned to face the counter, but those sad old eyes are caught on the tapping of her fingers in front of her. She looks weary, and tired, and the subtle longing in her voice to accompany the briefest mention of this girl makes it all too clear how heavy this rests.
“What… the uh… superhero bit?”
How exactly does one navigate this conversation?
Supergirl nods, doesn’t offer any clarification. Faith hums, not knowing what to say. Should she say something? God knows. She wipes the counters and notes the colour and make of every car going by, while a despondent alien stares down at her empty plate.
She spends the rest of her shift contemplating superhuman heartache and its implications.
-
“I like the storefront artwork.”
“I assume you’re referring to the dick collage that I don’t get paid enough to wash off.”
Motherfucker.
-
Supergirl has been casually popping in for almost a year when it dawns on her.
It’s early, barely 8 p.m., her shift just starting with a wipe down of the hobs and moving a crate of eggs from the backroom to the slats underneath the counter. There’s a man cutting up pancakes for his toddler son, and the trees outside are midway through losing their leaves. The air is crisp and clean, the Tuesday evening traffic just as non-existent as every other evening of the week, and the news is on mute. A welsh rock band plays, a rare reprieve from the constant country - Faith was long ago resigned to the shitty signal and inconsistent weather removing her say in what haunts her shifts.
She straightens from the dials on the grill, looks over to the television, and sees Supergirl.
Not an inherently unusual occurrence, to be fair, and not usually something that particularly catches Faith’s interest but… this was interesting.
The Girl of Steel, suit prevailing pride even through the dirt and ash tainting her boots and cape, smudged grime down the side of her face, slowly floating to the ground. In her arms? Lena Luthor. Which, hey, isn’t inherently unusual. Makes sense that some of the two most powerful - and simultaneously most hated - individuals in National City would share a room on occasion but this…
The bridal carry does no job at hiding Supergirl’s face from the camera, and it’s an expression that most wouldn’t look twice at but, having heard that voice string together short, mourning sentences, with a yearning to her eyes for an unknown girl, Faith recognises it well. Softness, worry, a gentle lowering onto the ground below. Camera’s swarming as soon as they meet the pavement, a security team and a large car obscuring Luthor from view. Supergirl staring off screen in what can only be assumed is the direction she left in, face blurred with the jostling of cameras.
Amidst calls for a statement, Supergirl simply turns and, in a motion Faith had heard rattle the diner’s window before, squares her shoulders, bends her knees slightly, and shoots upwards.
The door dings with a customer, and it is in a reflexive haze that Faith whisks eggs.
Lena goddamn Luthor, huh.
-
Faith doesn’t mention it, doesn’t want to pry - hell, how do you even go about bringing something like that up. ‘Hey, that chick you told me about? Yeah the one you apparently treat like shit who I’m pretty sure is this billionaire with a world famous murderous brother? Yeah dude how’s she doin’?’
Yeah, Faith’s much more content with peace and quiet. She does keep a closer eye on that shitty television when Luthor’s mentioned, though. Gotta be one hell of a girl to have someone compensating with coffee that sweet.
-
Supergirl turns up looking ghostly while she makes herself a pancake snack - working here makes her feel like she lives and breathes grease all hours of the day, might as well eat it. The hero’s eyes are sunken, suit proud but shoulders slumped. Faith can’t help but think she looks awfully similar to how she did the first time they met.
She doesn’t speak, half smiles ‘hello’ and pays, sits slowly at the usual booth, eyes out the window the whole time. She stares at the trees in the dark, at the waning moon muted by clouds, or maybe at the flickering street light. Another one went last month, Faith’s been wondering how many have to go out before she asks the owner if they should ring up a local elective. Supergirl looks, for the first time she’s known her, dwarfed by her own suit. She looks small, and fragile, and weary, with the icon of a crest worn more like a brand than a symbol.
She’s served in silence, and nods thanks.
Faith leans against the counter, contemplative.
“You look shit.”
Her sole, sombre customer doesn’t move much, very slowly moving her fingers along the side of her mug. Her jaw twitches, eyelashes lowered. Silence stretches. There’s something distinctly inhuman about her tonight; it has Faith on edge, the haunting in those eyes.
“On this day - a while back - I landed on Earth.”
The hell do you say to that.
“That’s uh… Not a great time, I’m guessing?”
Admittedly alien backstories are not Faith’s forte.
Supergirl does huff something similar to a laugh though, and she therefore assumes she hasn’t said the wrong thing yet, even if it does seem more deprecating then humoured.
“Just reminds me a lot of my home planet I guess,” and so the universe lore expands, “it’s not really around anymore.”
It’s heavy, a planet dead. She doesn’t want to imagine the weight, a culture and population on lone shoulders, but she sees it reflected in how Earth’s Mightiest looks out into the blued night sky, and stares with a grief so lonesome it doesn’t feel like Supergirl really recognises Faith is still there.
She doesn’t know what to say, and really doubts there’s anything she’s supposed to say, so she refills her coffee. Supergirl stays a long time, doesn’t move save to sip her drink. Her chest and shoulders possess the eerie stillness of something that does not breathe, and Faith never once sees her blink, in the hour she stares at the stars through the dirty windows. They don’t speak again that night, nor is it a night that they ever speak of afterwards.
An insight into a loss of an unimaginable magnitude, and Faith thinks that if her home was just a star stuck dying in the sky, she’d want the ground to swallow her up too.
-
When Lex Luthor dies, Faith for the first time wishes she had a way of contacting Supergirl outside of their every week or so catch-ups. It’s quite clear, from the ambiguous police files, to the conflicting news reports, that there is a lot being withheld from the public eye. Footage of the sister Luthor, carrying a weight no makeup nor smart clothes nor pretty hair can hide the shadow of, is everywhere, looking like she keeps catching ghosts in her periphery as she provides public statements.
When the Tuesday boys speculate, implying the worst, the familiar tune of the less than savoury but common public opinion of the Luthors taking up her finely shitty establishment, Faith tells them to shut the hell up.
-
Supergirl turns up the next week, as always, looking exhausted, as usual, and orders her regular. She doesn’t need to, it’s quite a remarkable order that Faith’s been making for her a while now, but she does. Call it habit.
And as she pours the coffee, Supergirl talks to her about Lena Luthor for the first time.
“Lex’s sister - what do you think of her?” It’s almost comically unsubtle, seeing the hero lean out the booth slightly, making very little an attempt to hide her curiosity.
“I know that I don’t like how they talk about her in those articles.” Stirs the coffee, turns around to flip the bacon. “She seems fine, I’m not sure if random-chicks-in-Midvale’s opinions particularly matter with people like her but,” plates the bacon, realising a solid third of their pork produce goes towards a sole customer, “I’d be an awful bit more fond of her if you didn’t look so goddamn miserable whenever she comes up”.
Plate on table.
Supergirl looks up at her, wide-eyed confusion danced round realisation - “Uhhh- We’ve never spoken about Lena- Miss Luthor, before.” She looks hurriedly down and then out the window, refuses to hold her gaze, and it’s genuinely astounding how bad a liar she is.
Faith waves her hands in the air, a universal ‘Lord help me’ gesture. “How the hell do you hide a secret identity again? Jesus. You near fall out of your seat talking about her, same you do that mystery girl you’re always after.”
Seeing a superhero gape like a startled fish is amazing, wish she’d gotten a photo - it’d be good for customers.
“You knew?”
It’s a touch offensive how abysmal Supergirl seems to think her critical thinking skills are.
“I really thought this was obvious? Literally half the national news feed this last month has been you two. You stare at her like she hung the moon.” Yeah, this really was insulting.
In all honesty she expects Supergirl to try to defend herself further, to shut down the accusation that she’s pining with the grace of a fool for a Luthor. It’s what she should do, even, considering how highs stakes’ both their lives are, not beginning to imagine the nationwide shitstorm that’d occur if it got out.
But no, the Girl of Steel sits still for a few seconds, then splits into the broadest grin Faith’d ever seen on her. She then turns back to her bacon, and that’s that evening’s conversation concluded.
God, having a superhuman regular on the night shift really was a weird one.
-
“Are superheroes religious? Or, uh, Kryptonians? Was it?”
Silence over their coffee. Enough time passes for Faith to ash her cigarette thrice.
“Yes but… not the way humans are.”
Faith hums, figures that’s a pretty fair answer considering the tragic death of a planet and all. She’s resigned herself to silence when Supergirl continues.
“I still pray though.”
There’s not really much that can be said to that, so Faith sits in silence and they watch the cars together.
-
And then everything goes to shit.
It’s late when Supergirl shows up - or early? - And Faith’s shift’s about to end. It’s been weeks now, since Lex Luthor died, and she’d been enjoying the news slowly shifting back to normal, regular local Midvale occurrences. But the look on the superhero’s face has her limbs locking up, hands still under the running tap.
“What the hell happened.” Not a question, too urgent for manners.
And understandably so, in her defence; Supergirl looks horrific. Bruising, hair grimy and askew for perhaps the first time all the while Faith had known her. Her shoulders hung with a weight so heavy they looked near caving over, and her eyes glazed with something… inhuman. Her veins stood stark upon pale skin, unnaturally so, and a green tinge haunted her complexion, dark blue under her eyes and running down her neck. She looks physically sick, exhaustion and fever twitching her jaw.
“Supergirl, what the ever-loving hell happened.”
And the Girl of goddamn Steel stares at her with such sadness that Faith thought that maybe the universe was going to swallow her up any minute now, because Supergirl’s eyes spoke of nothing but grief and sorrow and death and she says, “Lena knows.”
And then Supergirl starts to cry and all Faith knows to do is sit her down and join her at the booth and wait it out.
It’s something strange, watching an undefeatable, unbreakable hero sob over a woman she loves, but Faith’s found herself in a few of these strange situations these last couple years and she’s content to sit through this one same as the rest. Supergirl cries, silent the whole time, hunched forward with her chin to her chest, to the crest that talks of glory and truth and family and things that, Faith is aware with a soft sort of sorrow, are not owed to the Girl of Steel herself.
Supergirl cries, no bacon involved, and Faith doesn’t care that she doesn’t know what the hell is going on, or what Lena Luthor knows, because her ma’d be telling her to be a good host right this second, and she wouldn’t be wrong - so Faith makes coffee and pours the six sugar sachets in herself for once and prays to whatever god it was that Supergirl believed in that it’d all work out just fine.
And, of course, it’s the same Emmylou singing of buffalos and Texaco’s over the stereo that it was when the pair first met, sad as ever. Faith sits with her for hours, lets the woman barely any older than her cry a touch, and tells her not to mention it when she leaves.
-
She found out the next week that Lena Luthor knowing was, for lack of a less dramatic term, a metaphorical death sentence to the superhero.
Or perhaps it is a more literal death sentence when she’s informed of a substance that Kryptonians are vulnerable to, one that the Luthor used to trap the sweet woman who laughs at penis graffiti and drinks sugary coffee. Faith catches herself feeling real angry about that for a second, until Supergirl, gentle fool in love that she is, tells her not to worry and that Lena didn’t mean it and, honestly, all Faith can feel is pity.
Superhuman heartache and those mighty complications and all.
-
Supergirl gets better. She’s raw, hurt, gets roughed up more often than Faith remembers her getting before. Doesn’t talk about Luthor for a long time, and Faith politely flicks the channel when said Luthor’s televised conferences coincide with her friend’s - friends with a superhero, what do you know - visits.
She doesn’t talk about much, really, for a while. Feels like they’ve gone back in time, to where the shitty, barely-big-enough-to-house-three-booths diner was nothing but empty space and awkward coffee.
It gets warmer, summer comes quick and Faith marks another year working here. She’s still not sure if she loves or hates it, and finds the balance in-between keeps her life plenty interesting.
They sit outside more, watching early sunrises as her shift closes up. The pink sky peaks through the trees, pines grabbed by new-born rays of sun. Cars are frequent, early summer holiday transit making life busier and the attached gas station less ghostly.
She drags her cigarette, utterly desensitised to the sharing of her end of shift coffee with an alien two states over.
“I grew up in Midvale. A part of me misses how simple life was, and a part of me resents my cousin for leaving me here.” Supergirl hasn’t looked away from the trees, fingers tapping along the wobbly table between them, leant comfortably against the glass windows exposing the innerworkings of the 24/7.
“They have a good reason for it?” ‘Cause goddamn if all you do is ask a superhero obvious questions and receive elusive answers.
Birds tweet, melodies undermined by occasional highway engines and the thrumming of the streetlights that should be flickering off anytime soon. The tapping of Supergirl’s fingers is a level and measured motion, and you are aware of how simply she could grip the table into dust.
“I used to think so.”
After another few minutes or so, Faith ashes her smoke, and on the walk to her car, looks over her shoulder to catch the blur of Supergirl shooting upwards.
-
“Human love, I don’t understand.”
Faith really doubts that with arms like that the Girl of Steel particularly struggles with attraction, but as is usual with Supergirl, there’s a dozen points of context neither Faith nor her feel the need to waste air discussing. So she just hums, keeps her eyes on the news, watching reports on drought out of state and local elections, old Urban turned down quiet next to the television.
“On Krypton we’d mate for life.”
It doesn’t take particularly advanced comprehension skills to note how neither Krypton not National City nor Midvale are ever simply just ‘home’.
“You thinking about her?” Faith doesn’t have bricks for brains.
Supergirl huffs a laugh, leaves a few minutes later to pummel a mutant slime monster with what must’ve been claws six foot long into the earth - Faith gets a front row seat on the television as she cleans the table legs for the first time in two months.
-
It’s been many months since Supergirl turned up that one night, kryptonite sick and heartbroken, when Lena Luthor walks through the doors.
It’s just past 11, ‘24/7 Coffee, Eggs, and Love’ reflecting blue on the puddles from the rain earlier, and the news station is muted. Faith has a headache, and she’s counting down the six remaining hours until she’s done for the weekend. She’s making coffee; swearing at the machine, and looks up at the ding of the bell, sees one of the wealthiest women this side of the globe, and eloquently says: “What the fuck.”
Lena Luthor orders a black coffee, and if Faith thought Supergirl was a force of nature? This is something else entirely. Sleek black skirt and shirt, gloves and leather, not an inch of skin visible below the high collared neckline. She’s postured eerily straight, as if every muscle in her body was held on a leash of perfect tension, each tendon schooled. It’s almost unsettling, how elegantly she moves closer and sits at the counter, where no one ever sits because it was permanently sticky and also the customer service here isn’t civil enough to invite at-the-island conversations.
How a human is able to swallow the room in her presence Faith can’t comprehend. Her hands shake as she pours coffee, feeling eyes the colour and depth of the trees across the highway carve into her shoulder blades.
It’s quite daunting, honestly, realising she’s found herself in the middle of perhaps the strongest being on the planet and the smartest. It’s also incredibly irritating, suddenly very aware of how Supergirl’s elusiveness could be putting her in a position of knowing an incredibly incriminating amount, with little to none actual facts.
Once again, what the fuck had she gotten herself into?
Faith sets the coffee in front of her, and leans back against the shelves directly opposite. Lena Luthor watches her with an entirely unreadable expression, and wonders if this was the kind of lady her ma, Christian as the sky is blue, would pray for. Lovely woman, if a touch judgemental.
“You know Supergirl.” It is, admittedly, a very attractive voice. It felt a lot like there was a threat somewhere in that statement, but three words were doing an impressive amount of hiding and Faith wasn’t quite sure where.
“As do you.” It was surprisingly hard not to sound like the petulant, snarky friend to a heartbroken superhero, despite it being quite the niche but, wow, she did sound a lot like one.
Luthor’s eyebrow twitched, “You know her well enough to dislike me.”
“Dislike’s a delicate way to say it.”
The lip of the woman across her ghosts a smirk, but she stays silent, waiting for her coffee to cool. It’s a reminder of her mortality.
Faith doesn’t look away, watching as sternly as she can as Lena Luthor slowly surveys the room. It feels almost wrong, that her eyes aren’t caught on the booth Supergirl always sits in, as if one of those many twists in the strings of fate should have her attention hooked and sunk. She passes over the tiles Supergirl dripped blood on once, well over a year ago now, but her eyes linger out the window, the direction her counter part’s always do, and Faith wonders not for the first time, what the actual hell goes on inside the heads of these two terrifying ladies.
When she turns back to Faith, she finally speaks. Her voice is softer than it was just a second ago, as if this shitty little diner has the exact same effect it has on her that it has on Supergirl. “She trusts you. I have no idea why. I do not know what she’s told you, I don’t know why she comes here.”
Faith, in her defence, is not at all thinking in a particularly functional manner. “Our bacon is nice. She’s very sentimental. Also that’s $1.90.”
It seems to take Luthor off guard, which is amusing, watching one of the most dangerous women in the world do an almost visible double take, rustle out a bill that equals a new most impressive tip - ‘with love’ - on Faith’s shift, and tilt her head at the country pop song that’d just come on.
“Why are you here? The hell do you want with Supergirl.” God her mother’ll call her in the morning about a freak dream in which she didn’t treat a nice young lady with the best manners Midvale has to offer, she can sense it.
Lena Luthor just looks at her, eyes searching hers, and it feels that with every second going past her shoulders hold less and less of that tension and Lord help Faith why does this terrifying woman who she’s actually trying to really hate right now look so pitifully sad.
“I have no fucking clue. I think I’m in love with her.”
And then she walks out, every bit as refined as she was when she walked in, not a hair nor heartbeat out of place, out of order, and Faith is left staring out the door with her jaw damn near dislocated.
All that proves Lena Luthor ever sat in her dingy little diner is an untouched, cold, black coffee, and Faith’s eyebrows touching her hairline.
-
She supposes it’s only typical, that she has absolutely no idea what’s going on. Never has, to be honest.
Over the next few days she doesn’t see either of the pair on the news. She sort of wonders if that’s a good or bad thing, but she mostly minds her own business. She calls her ma, who tells her about a nightmare she had a couple nights ago, and to make sure she’s minding her manners. The Tuesday regulars are hungover, and her second most eventful customer of the week, after the obvious, is a man who nearly cries when she overcooks his eggs.
Supergirl comes round soon though, as she does most weeks, and it’s never going to not be just a little bit weird that she’s friendly with an alien. Probably as least weird as it’ll ever get though, so Faith doesn’t mind so much.
She doesn’t mention Lena Luthor’s visit, mostly because the Girl of Steel likely already knows, but a little bit because wordlessly frying rashers is much more relaxing than conversations about scary wealthy women, and Faith feels her blood pressure is still recovering from staring down a billionaire over $1.90 coffee.
In a few months’ time, when Supergirl and Luthor are once again allied against some alien threat or other - not for the first time, Faith is appreciative of Midvale’s minimal supernatural occurrence rates - she takes the time to switch to the HD station and unmute the television. The pair are a mighty stretch less hateful than they once were, and Supergirl still looks at her like she’s hung the moon, and Faith feels a touch emotional at their brushing shoulders.
Another streetlight goes out soon after though, so she quits that afternoon to sell actual good coffee somewhere people want to pay for it. The Tuesday regulars will be sad, but she’s sure they’ll recover shortly; she genuinely doesn’t know their names.
When Supergirl finds out, a few shifts from the end of her two week notice, Faith's fed a line about building a brand and slid a business card for some journalist who thinks she's hot shit.