Work Text:
The first time Lena lays eyes on Kara Danvers, the nervous tag-a-long in a pink cardigan peeking out from behind Clark Kent’s shoulder, she’s surprised by the sudden, inexplicable urge to get to know her. Such a first impression is almost inconceivable to one as guarded as Lena Luthor. Her first instinct upon meeting people is usually a subtle but thorough appraisal and a critical eye for ulterior motive. She feels this wariness instinctively with Clark Kent, but for some reason his cousin appears immune to Lena’s usual penchant for scrutiny.
At first, Lena thinks that such an uncharacteristic lack of suspicion must be due to Kara’s looks. After all, Lena’s always had a thing for tall blondes, and Kara is incredibly easy on the eyes. And yet, as Kara begins to appear in Lena’s office more and more frequently, seeking quotes and interviews with the surprising lack of a hidden agenda, she begins to think that it may be something more than that.
It doesn’t take long for Lena’s walls to crumble in a way she hasn’t allowed with anyone since Lex revealed his madness years ago. Kara disassembles them deftly, all smiles and compliments and offerings of sweets that Lena would never, in a thousand years, consider consuming. It’s the sort of gambit that should almost certainly be ramping towards an eventual end goal, and yet if Kara has one then Lena is hopelessly blind to see it. At every turn, the fledgling reporter offers up nothing more sinister than friendship, and she only seems to expect the same from Lena in turn.
It's why, on one unremarkable Wednesday afternoon, Lena rails against every one of her hard-won instincts to find herself telling Kara, “Please, call me Lena.”
And she’s confused to find a warm, fuzzy feeling blooming in her chest when Kara does.
Lena’s friendship with Kara blossoms forth with improbable, but not unwelcome, speed. Lena isn’t used to anyone seeking her out purely for her company, but Kara Danvers is particularly persistent, and Lena can’t help but find that she likes it. They progress rapidly from a working relationship, to casual acquaintanceship, to regular friendly outings. Lena blinks, and suddenly she spends her lunch hours sharing laughter and potstickers instead of poring over the latest earnings reports while a wilting salad sits forgotten in her fridge. It’s something she hasn’t realized she’s wanted until it falls so easily into her lap.
“Snapper’s been relentless,” Kara complains as she dips three fries into ketchup simultaneously and shoves them into her mouth. “No matter what I do he seems determined to break my spirit. I don’t know what I did to make him hate me.”
“I find it hard to believe that anyone could hate you,” Lena says with casual sincerity as she takes a bite of her own lunch.
Kara gives her a small, grateful smile, before her expression falls again. “It’s just, what if he’s right, you know? Ms. Grant let me pick this job, but I didn’t really do anything to earn it. The other Catco reporters probably have journalism degrees and impressive resumes. What if I’m really not cut out for this? What if I don’t deserve it?”
Lena raises an eyebrow. Self-deprecation is an unusual look on her normally perky friend. “I highly doubt that Cat Grant would have put her faith in you if she didn’t genuinely believe you could cut it, Kara. The woman isn’t exactly known for her bleeding heart. And I happen to think that you’re already an excellent reporter. Snapper is probably just trying to push you to be the best you can be.”
Kara seems to mull over Lena’s words for a few moments, before her face breaks out into one of her signature thousand-watt smiles. “Well, I really appreciate that you believe in me at least. I don’t know what I would do without you,” Kara says, reaching across the table to briefly rest one of her hands on Lena’s. Lena is mortified to feel her face flush slightly at the contact.
Kara doesn’t seem to notice, and continues on, undaunted. “Oh! I forgot to mention - Alex says it’s okay if I invite you to family game night this Saturday! It’s sort of a by-invitation only, exclusive type of event, so you should really be honored,” she says with a cheeky smile.
Lena feels her heart skip a beat at the offer. She knows that Kara is part of a very tight-knit friend group, the kind that Lena has only ever seen portrayed in books or on TV. Lena has always been ashamed to admit it, but she’s somewhat jealous of Kara. Instead of being adopted into the viper’s nest of deceit and manipulation that formed the building blocks of a lifetime of trauma, Kara seems to have a family and a group of friends who genuinely love her. It’s true that Lena has found herself fantasizing about one day being counted among them.
Still, she falls back on old habits as she says uncertainly, “Oh, are you sure? I certainly wouldn’t want to intrude.”
“Nonsense!” Kara says, brushing Lena’s concerns aside with an exuberant wave of her hand. “Everyone will love you! You have to come!”
So, Lena lets out a short laugh at her friend’s persistence, and she does.
Lena downs the remains of her drink and slams the glass back onto the bar with just a bit too much force. The bartender shoots a glance in her direction, but his preoccupation with the Friday night rush seems to prevent him from taking any further action. Lena pushes the glass away and drops her head into her hands, focusing on the way the scotch burns her from the inside out so that the more insidious sting of betrayal can’t reach her.
How had she not seen it sooner? It’s almost comical how obvious it is now that the blinders are off. A pair of glasses and a ponytail. She feels like an utter fool to have been conned by something so hilariously simple. Lena ignores the nagging voice in her head telling her that she’s not the only one, that Kara’s managed to keep her identity a secret from the entire world with the very same flimsy disguise. It doesn’t matter that Kara’s lying to the rest of the world. It matters that she’s lying to Lena.
She pushes the bar stool back and wobbles to her feet on slightly shaky legs. She’s lost track of time and alcohol both, and she’s perhaps a bit drunker than she’d intended, but it doesn’t matter. She has no one waiting for her and nowhere to be. She pays her tab and considers calling her driver, but decides against it. The walk isn’t terribly far, and she’d prefer to stretch the space of time between leaving the bar and entering her empty apartment as far as she possibly can.
It's a rare lapse in judgment. Had she been in her right frame of mind, Lena might have remembered that she’s not in the best part of town. She might have inferred that, dressed in designer clothes and with her very recognizable face, walking home alone in the middle of the night is potentially not her most brilliant idea. But Lena is addled in equal parts by alcohol and despair, and so none of these very rational thoughts register until she is pressed up against the alley wall with the blade of a knife against her throat.
Lena almost laughs at the predictability of it all. She hardly even registers the demands coming from the two burly men who have her pinned against the brick. How typical of her life that when she feels she is completely beaten down, at her absolute lowest, the universe takes it upon itself to show her that it can always be worse.
It’s in this state, torn somewhere between tangible horror and detached amusement, that Lena feels the familiar displacement of air that is a harbinger of the only thing that could possibly make this situation worse.
Supergirl descends into the alleyway like an avenging angel, hitting the ground so hard that the buildings on either side of them shake on their foundations. She looks more serious than Lena has possibly ever seen her. Even in the thick of a fight, the Girl of Steel is usually all quips and easy confidence, leveling banter at her foes in tandem with heavy blows and heat vision. No so tonight. Tonight, she’s all business. Tonight, it’s personal.
And even as Lena is confronted with the presence of the very last person she wants to see at this moment, she can’t help the traitorous feeling of relief that washes over her. Even now, with all of the anger and betrayal and hurt, there’s nothing and no one that makes Lena feel safer, and she hates herself for it. Her shaking legs fail her as the last of the waning adrenaline flees her body, and Lena sinks down against the cold brick wall of the alley and curls in on herself. The muffled thuds of fists hitting flesh and the grunts of her would-be-assailants fade into the distance as she buries her face in her arms and dissociates to the uneven sounds of her own breathing.
It's been both an eternity and no time at all when the feeling of a gentle hand on her shoulder startles Lena out of her reverie. Her head snaps up instinctively, and before she can steel herself, she finds her own green eyes locked with a familiar pair of blue ones.
“Are you alright?” Kara asks her softly, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze that betrays none of the strength she’s just used to dispatch two assailants twice her size. The men in question lie sprawled on the pavement behind her, groaning softly in the wake of the beating they’ve just received.
Lena looks up into Supergirl’s eyes and feels another wave of humiliation and self-loathing wash over her. She’s been face to face with Supergirl dozens of times, even worked with her once or twice to stop some world-ending event or another. How had she managed to look the other woman in the face, look into those very familiar eyes, and not see what was standing right in front of her? It’s even harder to swallow when the current look of quiet, empathetic concern on Supergirl’s face is all Kara Danvers.
When Lena makes no move to answer, Kara’s expression grows worried. She seems to forget that she’s wearing her suit at the moment, and the more stoic, self-assured voice that she typically uses as Supergirl falters. She glances Lena up and down for a moment, in a way that suggests to Lena that she’s checking for injuries, and then asks softly, “Would you- would you like me to take you home?”
Lena wants to protest. She wants to not need anything from Kara at all right now. She wants to stand on her own two feet and march herself back to her empty apartment to wallow in her misery in peace. This isn’t her. She isn’t some damsel in distress. She’s Lena Luthor. She’s survived more assassination attempts than most world leaders and she always shakes them off and keeps moving. Yet now, through the waning of her previous buzz and the aftershock of a foiled attack, all she can do is look up at Supergirl and nod dumbly.
Slowly, as if not to startle her, Supergirl leans forward and gently wraps her arms around Lena, hoisting her up as though she weighs nothing at all. Lena tenses slightly at the contact, before she gives up and slumps against Kara’s chest, feeling defeated. Kara gives her one more look filled with utmost concern, but Lena averts her eyes.
“Hold on tight,” Kara says as she prepares for takeoff.
Lena takes a deep breath, braces herself, and then she does.
Days pass by, then weeks, and Lena throws herself into her work in a valiant attempt at self-distraction. She does her best to avoid both Supergirl and Kara Danvers, a feat made difficult by the fact that she constantly finds herself working with the former and is now boss to the latter. In retrospect, her acquisition of Catco Worldwide Media is perhaps not the soundest of business decisions, but when she sees how torn up Kara is at the prospect of Morgan Edge acquiring the company, she can’t just sit back and do nothing.
Lena certainly regrets her decision now, pulling an about-face in the corridor as she sees Kara step off the elevator. Honestly, she has no one to blame but herself at this point. She doesn’t even know why she continues to spend time at Catco. James Olsen can certainly handle the running of day-to-day affairs without her, a point he is clearly trying to make blatantly clear with his exaggerated sighs and general huffiness when he sees her at his staff meetings. It would undoubtedly be easier to avoid a certain blonde reporter from her office at L-Corp.
Yet Lena finds that even as she tries to convince herself that she wants nothing to do with Kara, she somehow can’t seem to completely maneuver her life around the conspicuous, Kryptonian shaped hole in her heart. It’s one thing to avoid Supergirl. Before Lena had figured out the truth, their relationship had been professional at best. Sure, it had been a relief to know that National City’s resident hero didn’t harbor any ill will based on Lena’s family history, but a cordial relationship had been more than satisfactory.
Lena can live without Supergirl. It’s Kara Danvers that she can’t quite get off her mind. Saturday nights have turned from colorful events filled with wine and laughter and charades to just another night drinking alone. Lunches return to a solitary, silent affair at the office, when Lena remembers to eat them at all. It’s so much crueler to have believed that Kara was her friend and to have lost that than to have never met her at all. Lena’s life certainly hadn’t felt so empty when she hadn’t even known that anything was missing. But Kara has been lying to her from the start. It’s clear that she’s never trusted Lena, that she’s never placed anywhere near the same importance on their relationship. And why should she? Kara has a doting sister and a group of friends who would do anything for her. Why should she bother risking her safety to gamble on a Luthor?
No, Lena has already solidified a plan to avoid Kara indefinitely. Eventually she may even be able to do it from a different building. Yet even as she hardens her resolve, her task becomes infinitely more difficult as the very person she’s avoiding corners her at the water cooler.
“Hey, Lena, can we talk?”
Kara appears out of nowhere, nearly startling Lena out of her skin. She wonders for a moment how the blonde woman has even managed to track her down, before she remembers that Kara is an alien who can see through walls.
“I’m sorry, Kara, I’m a bit busy at the moment. Can it wait?” Lena asks with a tight-lipped smile. She’s already casing the halls for an exit, but Kara doesn’t seem satisfied with her flimsy excuse.
“You’ve been acting really strange recently. I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever. Did I do something to upset you?” she asks. Her tone isn’t accusatory. On the contrary, she sounds hurt and a little bit scared, and it takes more resolve than usual for Lena to muster up her righteous fury in the face of it.
“I’ve just got a lot going on right now,” Lena says, her tone perhaps a bit more clipped than she intends. “I need to focus on my work without distractions.”
Lena lands pointedly on the final word in a way that causes Kara’s brow to furrow. Lena turns to walk away, but Kara steps in front of her. “Lena, wait, please. Whatever’s going on, you can talk to me.”
It’s spoken innocently enough, but the statement is enough to make Lena’s blood boil. She knows that she needs to extract herself from this situation now, before she says something that she regrets, but Kara is blocking her only exit, and it takes only thirty seconds of staring each other down for Lena’s fragile resolve to snap.
“Oh, I can talk to you, can I?” Lena bites out, ignoring the way the ice in her tone causes Kara’s expression to shift toward one of confusion. “Like you talk to me? Awfully rich to be demanding my honesty when you’ve been so sparing with your own.”
Whatever Kara had been expecting from their conversation, this clearly isn’t it. “Lena, what’re you-” she begins, but Lena cuts her off.
“Were you so worried about me when you were lying to me all those months?” Lena demands. Even as she finally lets loose her tirade, she keeps her voice low and measured. She doesn’t need her employees to hear their boss having a spat in the hallway. Angry as she is, she’s still had a sense of propriety drilled into her almost from the time she learned to speak. “Did you think it wouldn’t hurt to find out that I don’t even know someone who was supposed to be my best friend?”
Comprehension finally dawns on Kara’s face, and her eyes grow wide as they dart frantically around the immediate vicinity for anyone who might be listening in. When she’s satisfied that they’re alone, Kara trains her eyes on Lena again and says, “Lena, please, it wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like then?” Lena counters, hands balled into fists at her side. “What other possible conclusions was I meant to draw? If you value my friendship at all, then stop lying to me. I need you to tell me the truth.”
There’s a long, drawn-out pause, but eventually Kara sighs in resignation, she straightens her shoulders, and she does.
Lena takes a shaky breath to steady herself against the bar cart and pours herself two fingers of whiskey from a crystal decanter. She stares into the depths of the glass, contemplating whether her readiness to reach for the bottle after any sort of trauma has become concerning, before she tosses the glass back and downs its contents anyway. Another day, another attempt on her life. It’s not as though she hasn’t been through it before.
The assassination attempt wasn’t even original. A hidden gunman at a press conference – honestly, it’s been done to death. So what if the bullet flew a bit truer to its mark than usual this time? So what if the only reason she’s still standing here, problem-drinking expensive liquor, is that Kara has, once again, thrown herself between Lena and any sort of impending bodily harm? At the end of the day, all that matters is that Lena is alive. She still has a company to run. She has people depending on her. There’s no time to dwell on her brother’s latest attempt at vengeance, especially when it hasn’t even amounted to anything.
A soft knock at the balcony door startles Lena so badly that she almost drops her empty glass. She recovers quickly, placing it back down on the bar cart before she smooths her skirt and crosses the room to allow a waiting Supergirl into her apartment.
Kara doesn’t bother with the superhero bluster around Lena anymore. There’s no puffed-out chest or hands on hips as she steps across the threshold. She’s just Kara Danvers in a cape, and she takes one look at Lena, sees straight through the façade of bravado the shaken CEO has spent the better part of the day constructing, and wraps her in a tight hug.
“Are you okay?” Kara asks as she pulls out of the embrace, eyes trailing over Lena in a familiar search for injury.
“I’m fine,” Lena responds, ducking her head away slightly under the scrutiny. She tries her best to sound convincing, but she knows that if anyone is going to pick up on the slight wobble in her voice, or the barely perceptible trembling in her hands, it’s Kara.
Sure enough, the Kryptonian grabs for Lena’s hand as she makes to turn away. Eyes suddenly serious, she asks, “Are you sure?”
Lena isn’t sure, but that usually doesn’t stop her from pretending. She opens her mouth to provide reassurance, but she gives the game away when the words won’t seem to come.
Wordlessly, Kara tugs Lena along by the hand and out into the pleasant spring air on the balcony. Lena lets out an involuntary sigh as the warm breeze ruffles her hair, already feeling less cooped up than she had within the four walls of her apartment.
“Do you want to…?” Kara trails off, nodding towards the edge of the balcony. She’s studying Lena’s face as though trying to parse out what she’s really feeling, and Lena is forever grateful that reading minds isn’t among Supergirl’s many talents. She already feels like more of an open book than she’d like to be.
Lena’s never particularly enjoyed flying, but she doesn’t have the heart to tell Kara that. Besides, she’s willing to take a bit of fear and discomfort in exchange for the physical intimacy required by such a feat. Lena has only recently begun to be honest with herself about it, but she suspects that her feelings for Kara may, in fact, extend beyond friendship.
And so, Lena wordlessly steps up onto the tops of Kara’s boots and wraps her arms securely around the other woman’s waist, feeling strong arms wrap around the small of her back in turn. Then comes a familiar feeling of weightlessness as they drift off the balcony and into the waiting night sky.
Lena feels as though she cannot possibly be imagining it. Surely the way they’re floating here, entwined in each other’s arms, is something beyond the platonic. Surely there’s no way that Kara does this sort of thing with her sister, or with Winn, or with James.
But Lena’s confidence evaporates, as it has a thousand times before, in the face of her own uncertainty. She cannot shake the ever-present fear that, if she’s wrong, she could risk ruining her friendship with Kara for good.
Kara takes them higher still, until the lights of the city twinkle far below their feet. Lena is afraid of heights, but that fear is drowned by the overwhelming sense of certainty that Kara would never let her fall. Their eyes meet again, and a sudden sense of inexplicable bravery overcomes her, no doubt borne of their current nearness and the lingering buzz from the whiskey. If only momentarily, the fear of living the rest of her life in uncertainty dwarfs Lena’s fear of rejection.
“Kara”
“Mmm?”
“Kiss me.”
And, with only the briefest of hesitation, she does.