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It started in small ways, the kind of affection that blooms without fanfare. Lena never made a declaration. She didn’t need to.
It was in how she waited.
There was always a second cup of coffee on her desk—black with a single sugar, left untouched until Kara arrived late, breathless, apologetic, cheeks red from the wind.
“I’m so sorry, I—”
“I kept it warm,” Lena would say, sliding it over.
“Don’t burn your tongue.”
And Kara always did burn her tongue. Every time. She’d yelp softly and mutter, “Why do I always do this?” before flapping her hand at her face like it might fix the heat in her mouth. And Lena would pretend not to smile while secretly wondering if she could fall any harder for the most chaotic, tender, softly-spoken hurricane to ever trip through her life.
Kara never noticed the way Lena looked at her. Not really.
She never noticed how Lena’s gaze would soften when she got excited about something small, like a new donut place opening near the office, or a book sale at the library.
“They had a copy of Little Women in the original 1868 binding,” Kara once exclaimed, hugging a worn, fraying volume to her chest. “It smells like dust and tears!”
Lena had just blinked. “Dust and tears?”
Kara nodded, solemn. “You know. The good kind.”
Lena could barely keep her voice steady. “Only you would say something like that.”
She said it fondly. She always said things fondly where Kara was concerned. Even when Kara knocked over her entire purse searching for a lip balm she didn’t even bring.
“I know it’s in here,” she insisted, as receipts and paperclips rained across Lena’s office.
Lena picked up a tiny stuffed dinosaur keychain from the debris. “Is this...?”
“Oh!” Kara’s eyes lit up. “That’s Bronty. He guards my keys from intergalactic threats.”
There was no sarcasm in her tone. Not a hint of irony.
Lena held the tiny, squishy brontosaurus in her palm. “He’s very brave.”
“Fearless,” Kara confirmed.
And just like that, Lena was gone again, swept under by Kara’s simple, unfiltered joy. The way she believed in tiny, silly things the same way she believed in big, impossible things. With the same conviction. With the same open heart.
It was maddening and beautiful and made Lena want to cry some nights when she thought about how few people had ever really seen Kara. Not the cape. Not the glare of godlike power.
Just Kara.
Sweet, clumsy, fiercely kind Kara who once brought soup to an intern with the flu and stayed on the phone for two hours with a stranger she’d rescued from a fire, just to help him fall asleep again. Kara who apologized to printers when she kicked them by accident. Kara who cried when a bird hit her window but wouldn’t cry when she got hurt saving someone.
The world saw Supergirl. Lena saw Kara curl up on her couch in mismatched socks and whisper, “Do you think it’s okay if I don’t always feel strong?”
And Lena had wanted to say a thousand things. But all she said was:
“You don’t have to be. Not with me.”
Because Lena knew. Kara wasn’t strong because she was Supergirl.
She was strong because she kept showing up. Even when no one clapped. Even when people barely glanced her way. Even when the mask of normalcy exhausted her to the bone.
And maybe, maybe that’s why Lena loved her so terribly much.
Because Kara was real.
Because she loved too much. Because she forgave too easily. Because she laughed too loudly at her own jokes. Because she sometimes forgot to eat and wore oversized sweaters and tried to make pancakes and always burned the first three.
Because she tried.
One night, Kara was on Lena’s balcony, feet swinging over the edge, cape bundled beside her, arms tucked around her knees.
Lena stepped out quietly, offering a blanket. Kara didn’t turn.
“It’s easier sometimes,” she said, voice hollow, “being her. People like her. They trust her. She’s not awkward. She knows what to say.”
Lena knelt beside her, laying the blanket around Kara’s shoulders.
“But they don’t know her,” Lena said softly. “Not really.”
Kara looked at her then, eyes wide behind the glasses she still wore out of habit.
“I like the way you ramble when you’re excited,” Lena went on. “The way you double-space after periods like a nerd. The way you care too much about everything. I like that you try even when you’re exhausted. I like that you’re terrible at lying and worse at hiding your heart.”
Kara blinked. “Lena...”
“I love Kara Danvers,” Lena said. No cape. No mask. “I always have.”
And Kara’s lip trembled just a little, the way it did when she was overwhelmed.
“I’m a mess,” she whispered.
“I know,” Lena said. “But you’re my mess.”
And she reached for her, not like someone catching a falling star but like someone holding a hand that had always been waiting.
And Kara leaned in, not like a superhero, but like a girl who’d been waiting her whole life to be seen.
And Lena didn’t look away.
***
The night pressed in softly around them, the city below a blur of golds and whites. Traffic hummed like background music. Wind moved quietly through the skyline, tugging gently at Kara’s hair.
They hadn’t moved in minutes.
Kara’s hand was still in Lena’s, warm and hesitant.
Lena had said it, finally. Not in half-meant metaphors or careful phrasing. Not in the silences between sentences.
Just clear.
“I love Kara Danvers.”
No code names. No aliases. No costumes.
Kara was quiet. Too quiet.
Her fingers twitched in Lena’s. Her gaze was distant, fixed on something far below them, something only she could see.
“You shouldn’t,” she whispered.
Lena turned fully toward her. “I shouldn’t?”
“I’m...” Kara took a breath, then laughed bitterly under it. “I’m late all the time. I forget birthdays. I have, like, four pairs of identical jeans and still can’t find a clean one. I can hear people crying three blocks away and I can’t not go, even when we’re in the middle of dinner. I forget to text back. I ruin surprises. I talk during movies.”
Her voice cracked.
“I could be better.”
Lena didn’t speak right away.
She just let the quiet hold space between them for a moment, and when she did speak, her voice was soft and certain like marble carved in moonlight.
“You could,” Lena said, not cruelly, not sarcastically. Just truthfully. “But I don’t want better.”
Kara looked up, startled.
“I want you,” Lena said. “Exactly like this. Exactly as you are. I’ve loved you at your messiest, Kara. And I didn’t fall for perfection.”
Her thumb traced the back of Kara’s hand, slow, steady.
“I fell for the girl who trips on her own cape sometimes. Who sings off-key in the kitchen. Who gets teary-eyed during dog food commercials. Who shows up even when it hurts. Who loves people who don’t deserve it. Who still believes the world can be better.”
Kara blinked fast, trying not to cry.
“I fell in love with Kara Danvers,” Lena said again, softer now, more to herself than anyone else. “And there’s no one better than her.”
Kara looked like she wanted to argue. Her mouth opened slightly, then closed again. And then she leaned forward, just a little, like the world was too heavy and Lena was the only place left to fall.
“Lena...” Her voice caught in her throat. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“You don’t have to know.”
Kara’s lip trembled.
“I’m scared.”
“I am too,” Lena whispered. “But I still love you.”
Kara didn’t respond. Not with words.
She moved closer instead, slow, unsure, delicate. As if every inch forward was a question: Are you sure? Can I? Do I deserve this?
And Lena didn’t move. She let Kara answer her own questions in her own time.
When their lips finally met, it wasn’t cinematic. It wasn’t practiced.
It was gentle.
Kara kissed her like someone touching sunlight for the first time, not sure if she could hold it, not sure if she was worthy, but aching to try.
And Lena, Lena kissed back like she’d been holding her breath for years and had finally exhaled.
The world didn’t shift around them. There was no applause, no grand explosion, no dramatic music swelling from somewhere.
Just two hands holding tighter. Just a sigh caught between two mouths. Just the sound of something long overdue finally arriving.
When they parted, Kara didn’t speak for a long time.
She just rested her forehead against Lena’s, eyes closed, breath unsteady.
“I never thought I’d be seen,” she said finally.
“You were always visible to me,” Lena whispered.
Kara smiled.
Not the practiced smile she wore at press conferences. Not the polite one she gave strangers. Not the too-bright one she used to cover how exhausted she was.
This one was small. Soft. True.
And Lena knew she’d never seen anything more beautiful.
She laughed then—sudden and quiet and full of something weightless.
“I think I love you too.”
Lena’s heart stuttered.
“You think?”
Kara bit her lip. “I mean...yes. I do. I just... I’ve never said it like this. Not when it’s real.”
“It’s real,” Lena said.
Kara nodded. “I know. That’s what’s scary.”
Lena squeezed her hand.
“And beautiful.”
---
Later that night, as they curled under the same blanket, Lena would press a kiss to Kara’s temple and whisper, “You’re already the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
And Kara, with her head tucked beneath Lena’s chin, would whisper back, “Even when I burn the pancakes?”
“Especially then.”
***
It was a Tuesday. Or maybe a Wednesday. One of those middle-of-the-week, too-many-coffee-cups kind of days where Kara’s hair refused to cooperate, and the office printer had jammed four times before 10 a.m.
She was at the coffee station, humming off-key, distractedly adding way too much cream to her mug, when he walked up beside her.
Mark.
Newish. Finance department. Good hair. Good suit. Good teeth. Probably never burned pancakes in his life.
“Hey, Kara.”
She looked up, startled, almost dropping her spoon. “Oh. Hi.”
He smiled like he was used to being smiled at back. “So, um... I was wondering, there’s this art walk Thursday night? You know, food trucks, live jazz, overpriced watercolor prints…”
She blinked.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I thought maybe you’d want to go. With me. Like, a date.”
There it was. The kind of moment Kara never saw coming. It always left her a little frozen, like someone had hit pause on a remote only she didn’t know existed.
And then heels.
Soft, deliberate, unmistakable.
Lena’s voice slipped into the space before Kara could even fumble for a response.
“She’s busy.”
Mark turned. “Oh. Ms. Luthor, I didn’t see you there.”
Lena smiled, but there was a sharpness beneath it. The kind that wasn’t meant to cut unless you got too close.
“You were saying something about Thursday?”
“Yeah,” Mark said, still smiling, still assuming confidence was a shield. “I just thought Kara might like to grab dinner.”
“She has plans,” Lena said smoothly. “With me.”
Kara’s eyes darted between them.
Mark looked surprised. “Oh.”
There was a pause. One of those awkward, stalling silences that everyone felt but no one wanted to break.
Then Lena added, gently but firmly, “She’s not available.”
Mark blinked. “Right. Got it.”
He left without another word, footsteps a little too quick. Kara stared after him for a second, then turned back toward Lena, cup still in hand, now lukewarm and overfilled.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Kara said, voice light but a little uncertain.
“I wanted to,” Lena replied.
Kara tilted her head. “You were kind of... intense.”
Lena leaned in, lowering her voice. “He asked out my girlfriend.”
Kara’s heart did a small, unnecessary flip. “I don’t remember the part where we made that official.”
Lena arched a brow. “Would you like me to print a certificate?”
Kara laughed, biting her lip. “You’d really go that far?”
“I would put it on company letterhead,” Lena said. “Stamp it. Frame it. Send it to the IRS.”
Kara smiled, really smiled. That crinkly-eyed, nose-scrunched kind that only showed up when she felt safe. When she felt seen.
Lena touched her wrist, voice softening.
“I’m not trying to be possessive,” she said quietly. “But people look at Supergirl like she’s a public resource. Like she belongs to the world. And that’s fine. I can share her. I do share her.”
She paused.
“But not you.”
Kara blinked. “Me?”
“You,” Lena said. “Kara Danvers. The girl with the dinosaur keychain and the bag full of half-eaten granola bars and three pens that don’t work. The one who always forgets where she parked and once wore mismatched shoes to a press briefing.”
Kara covered her face with one hand, groaning. “That was one time!”
“And I fell in love with her,” Lena continued. “So no, I can’t share you. Not that part. Not the part the world ignores. Because that part is mine.”
The words were quiet. Not loud. Not jealous. Just full of something Lena rarely let show:
Need.
Kara stepped closer, their shoulders almost touching.
“You really love all that?” she asked, half-teasing, half-sincere.
“All of it,” Lena said. “Even the way you talk to squirrels like they’re listening.”
“They are listening.”
Lena smiled. “Of course they are.”
Kara looked down at their joined hands. The office buzzed in the background. Phones ringing. People typing. Conversations bouncing off glass.
And none of it mattered.
Kara leaned in just enough to press a kiss to Lena’s cheek, barely there, warm and quick but it made Lena’s breath catch.
“You’re kind of mine too, you know,” Kara said softly.
Lena didn’t reply.
She just pulled Kara gently toward her and whispered against her temple:
“Only yours.”
***
It broke like they all do.
Suddenly.
One headline. One leaked email. One careless quote ripped out of context.
“LUTHOR TECH LINKED TO ILLEGAL SURVEILLANCE SOFTWARE”
“CEO LENA LUTHOR: GENIUS OR MANIPULATOR?”
“IS HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF?”
By noon, it was on every news network. By evening, protestors were outside L-Corp with signs and camera flashes. Her board wanted a statement. Her lawyers wanted her silent. The press wanted blood.
And Kara, Kara just wanted to see her.
But Lena wasn’t answering her calls.
So Kara showed up. Not as Supergirl. Not in the sky.
Just Kara Danvers, hair in a messy ponytail, cardigan sleeves too long, heart in her throat.
Jess tried to stop her. “She’s not seeing anyone right now, Kara, she said she needs space.”
Kara nodded. “She can have space. I’ll just sit near it.”
She found Lena on the upper floor of her office, lights off, curtains drawn, rain slicking the windows with grey.
Lena didn’t look up when Kara entered.
She was sitting on the edge of the sofa, one hand in her lap, the other holding a whiskey glass she hadn’t touched.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Lena said flatly.
Kara didn’t move. “That’s not your call.”
“I’m toxic right now,” Lena muttered. “Even being seen near me.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do,” Lena snapped, louder than she meant to. Then softer: “You deserve better than this. Than me. I’m everything they’re saying I am.”
Kara moved closer. “No. You’re not.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
Lena finally looked up, and her eyes were tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep. “Kara, this... this is the Luthor name. This is what comes with it. Every time I get close to proving them wrong, something like this happens. Every time.”
Kara didn’t argue. She just sat beside her, hands folded in her lap.
“They’re calling me a liar. A manipulator. I saw one blog say I’m probably building killer robots in my basement.”
Kara gave a soft smile. “You don’t even like the Roomba I bought you.”
“It’s too smart.”
They sat in silence for a beat.
And then Kara, gently:
“Did you authorize the surveillance?”
Lena shook her head once, sharp. “No.”
“That’s all I need.”
Lena let out a bitter laugh. “It’s not all they need.”
“They’re not the ones in love with you.”
That stopped Lena cold.
Kara leaned forward, voice steady.
“I’ve seen you rebuild this company from the ground up. I’ve seen you lose sleep trying to find a cure for diseases you weren’t even responsible for. I’ve seen you donate more in secret than most people give publicly their whole lives. I’ve seen you question yourself more than anyone should have to because you’re terrified of becoming someone you never were.”
Lena turned her head away, jaw tight.
“And I’ve seen you put your whole heart into doing the right thing, even when no one noticed. Even when they twisted it. Even when it cost you.”
Kara reached for her hand.
“So no, Lena. I don’t need perfect press. I don’t need the world’s approval. I need you.”
Lena didn’t cry. She just inhaled sharply, like someone holding back a tidal wave.
“I don’t want you dragged into this,” she whispered.
“You won’t be the one dragging me.”
Lena looked at her, eyes shining but unreadable. “Why do you always believe in me?”
Kara gave her a tiny, crooked smile.
“Because I know the truth about who you are. Not the headlines. Not the legacy. You. Just Lena.”
And that was the breaking point.
Lena exhaled all at once, like she’d been holding her breath for hours. And then, without ceremony, she leaned into Kara’s side. Not crumbling. Just resting. Just allowing herself to be held.
Kara wrapped an arm around her, tucking them together on the couch like two puzzle pieces always meant to fit.
“Let me stay,” Kara murmured. “Just for a while.”
“You don’t have to fix it.”
“I’m not here to fix it.”
Kara rested her cheek against Lena’s hair.
“I’m here to carry it with you.”
They stayed like that, no capes, no headlines, no speeches.
Just two women in the eye of the storm.
Later, when Lena finally spoke to the press, Kara stood off to the side, not in the spotlight, not in costume, not saying a word.
But Lena’s voice was stronger because of her.
And when a reporter asked, “Are you worried about what this means for your future?”
Lena looked past the cameras, toward one woman in a mustard cardigan and slightly smudged glasses.
And she smiled.
“No,” she said. “My future’s already the best part of me.”
***
The scandal didn’t vanish.
Scandals never do.
They simmer. They rot in comment sections. They twist into late-night talk show monologues and whisper through corporate halls.
But the truth has a strange kind of endurance.
And Kara Danvers was very, very good at finding it.
Lena had barely slept in days. Her legal team was cautious. Her board was nervous. The public remained half-convinced she had a subterranean lab somewhere in Nevada, filled with blinking red lights and robotic minions.
And then Kara knocked on her office door, glasses slightly crooked, tablet in hand.
“I want to write it,” she said.
Lena looked up, bleary-eyed. “Write what?”
“Your story.”
Lena frowned. “Kara, this isn’t a story. It’s a PR disaster.”
“It’s both,” Kara said. “But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tell the truth. In your words. Not the company statement. Not what your lawyers distilled. You.”
Lena rubbed at her temple. “I can’t spin this.”
“I’m not asking you to spin anything,” Kara said, pulling up a document already half-written. “I’m asking you to be honest. About the tech, the design flaws, the audit you initiated months before the leak. About the ethics committee you created. About what you learned. About what’s actually happening, instead of what they’re guessing in headlines.”
Lena stared at her.
“You’ve already started writing it?”
Kara smiled sheepishly. “I may have... interviewed your head of R&D and your assistant and Jess. Twice.”
Lena raised a brow. “You’re relentless.”
Kara shrugged. “It’s in the job description.”
She handed Lena the tablet. The draft was titled plainly:
“The Truth About the L-Corp Scandal: An Inside Look” By Kara Danvers, Senior Reporter, CatCo Magazine
Lena read in silence.
It wasn’t dry. It wasn’t corporate. It wasn’t a defense piece either. It was... human. It acknowledged the missteps. It quoted engineers and internal emails. It laid out a timeline with dates and facts. And then, softly but unmistakably, it painted a picture of a woman trying really trying to use her family’s name to fix the things that legacy broke.
When Lena looked up, her voice was small.
“You believe in me that much?”
“I don’t publish what I believe,” Kara said. “I publish what I know.”
And the way she said it, quiet, firm, certain it sent something sharp and sweet slicing through Lena’s chest.
It wasn’t just that Kara had written it. It was that she saw her clearly enough to even try.
“You could’ve written about Supergirl,” Lena said softly. “That would’ve gotten more clicks.”
Kara stepped closer. “I didn’t fall in love with Supergirl.”
Lena blinked.
“I fell in love with Lena Luthor,” Kara continued. “The one who paces when she thinks. Who edits her own press releases late at night. Who double-checks every statistic because she doesn’t want to accidentally hurt anyone. Who’s so brilliant she terrifies her enemies but still worries if she sounded too harsh in a board meeting.”
She stopped.
“I write about the people who matter. And you do.”
Lena didn’t speak.
She just stared.
At Kara Danvers: cardigan wrinkled, pen ink on her wrist, eyes too big and too kind for someone who carried so much. There was no cape, no S, no spotlight. Just this woman who was braver than most heroes Lena had ever met.
And something in Lena just broke free.
“You make it hard not to love you.”
Kara tilted her head, confused. “What?”
“I mean...” Lena laughed, softly, helplessly. “You show up at my lowest, bring me back to myself, write this and still somehow you think you’re the forgettable one.”
“I didn’t say.”
“You always say it. Every time you try to disappear into the background. Every time you let Supergirl take the credit because you think Kara Danvers is less.”
Kara opened her mouth, but Lena was already walking forward.
“You’re more. Kara, you’re so much more. And every time I see that, every time you open your mouth and destroy a narrative with facts and heart, I fall in love with you all over again.”
Kara’s breath hitched.
“You... you really mean that?”
“I’ve never meant anything more,” Lena said.
She touched Kara’s cheek, gently, like Kara might vanish under her fingertips.
“You saved me. Not with strength. Not with speed. With truth. With you.”
Kara laughed, wet, breathless, blinking too fast.
“That article’s going to win you an award, you know,” Lena added, teasing now. “Just don’t forget to mention your very difficult and demanding source in your acceptance speech.”
Kara smiled, leaning forward.
“I’ll just bring her as my date.”
They kissed again then, slow, warm, anchored in something deeper than either of them had ever known.
Later, when the article went live, the scandal started to crack. Public opinion shifted. CEOs praised the transparency. Readers flooded the comments.
But the only headline Lena remembered?
By Kara Danvers.
Because the world finally saw what she had always known.
And Lena, sitting on the couch with Kara curled under her arm, whispered,
“You’re my favorite kind of hero.”
And Kara, blushing, whispered back,
“Only yours.”