Work Text:
Kara retreated further into the apartment, the golden light of the morning not quite reaching the room; not like it had, Lena found herself thinking. There was some loss of quality there, as if some of the vibrancy has been taken out of the equation, as if the light of the sun ricocheted less on what she had considered Kara's inner energy, the kind of one that she had been able to take refuge within when she had needed time to breathe. She had lost the ability to see the light a year ago, when the truth had reached her in a way that had corroded whatever else she believed kept their relationship afloat. It had been dark edges and long shadows and hurt, hurt that boiled and spilled and gurgled until every emotion was replaced by that very same hurt.
She had seen her brother die. She had killed him. She had pulled the trigger; filled to the brim with the knowledge of being more than, of being better than, for being surrounded by people who trusted her, confided her. She had killed him for that truth. She had killed him for Kara.
Not exactly. Not quite right. But a much more complicated response required a re-frame of what had been the moment in where her mind had known that she would do it, lapsed by the moment that it had indeed happened.
After all, he had destroyed that disgust protected within the armor her friendship brought with fairly easily; One simple video. That had been what it had taken him. A video of carefully edited shots, of a Kara that was capable, and strong, and gorgeous in a way different than the one Lena had pictured her: of resilience but far from the sweet version she had seen already, the juxtaposition making her dizzy, alone.
The aftermath had left her with the painful, horrid knowledge that she had fallen for her sempiternal need to believe that she would be different, that a lack of her surname, of what it meant, was attainable. A tunnel-like vision and response she would have been able to spot on Lex but unable to see on her. She had lost the ability to see colors beyond the gradient of gray that had bled from her single razor-like focus of getting to a point in where nothing but tranquility would remain.
And now she closed the door of Kara's apartment and it all felt distant, muted. Like the shadows of what she *knew* that should have been bleeding morning colors: pinks and reds and oranges that would then be captured and reflected as they danced through the space; perfect and safe and an extension of someone that had been home. Warmth.
Love.
Kara said nothing, the door's handle growing warm far too soon on Lena's skin and she turned and stared; at what she remembered. At what she did not.
What made the biggest difference was the silence perhaps; the way it tensed around them, coiling around their necks: she could almost see the invisible line running through Kara's shoulders: the posture not quite Kara's but Supergirl's in a way that Lena spied as she pressed her thumb against the palm of her opposite hand, hoping to keep herself grounded long enough. It was not the posture she thought as seconds passed, but the doubt surrounding the movement, the lack of bubbling excitement, the need of connection. Kara stared at her hurt, waiting, with sad eyes and harsher lines of expression, with narrow hips and one hand gripping the back of a chair. And Lena could feel it, the way her brain pushed for that tidbit, for her to start doing the math of how strong would Kara need to grip the chair, how different was she of the human she had thought her to be.
And she despised that. As much as she understood her brain, as much as she knew it to be a byproduct of her nervousness, she wished to not make a list of differences that would not have made a difference before but, after all, after everything, it seemed they would.
She had been hurt. She had hurt in response. She had fallen in a way she had never thought possible. And the violence Lex, *this* Lex had exuded when screaming at her had been sobering and chilling and unpleasant. And she was terrified.
Her voice was shaky when she finally allowed herself to speak and she could feel the tilt on her voice, the way her vowels changed, the way her accent shone through. Subtle, maybe, but enough for the muscles of her jaw to be tight around her vocal chords, the way consonants fell into place.
"I've made a terrible mistake."
It was the easiest sentence to say, out of everything else. She had pride. Had it in spades. But was not blind to where her own abilities did not reach. She strived for those to be minute, for them to not create problems as far as studies and projects went: she needed hyperawareness, a preternatural ability to think smarter, faster. She *was* smart, she *was* fast. She only needed to be better. All the time. Always.
Quite an easy trap to fall onto when pride got hurt. When voices overlapped and fed onto smaller ones, the ones that came from real places in where solitude had won, in where hands grasped for connection: empty and hungry and needy. She had always felt *so* needy when it came to Kara, when it came to their friendship.
As she kept on speaking, with Kara standing there, waiting, listening, Lena thought again on how unbalanced she had made it be for her own feelings to shine through: how she had never considered herself knowing enough how to act beyond being blinded by the brilliance she felt Kara glowed with: it was not something the blonde manufactured in terms of it being fake: she was warm and approachable and a someone to confide in. She also kept so many people at arm's length in subtle, soft ways. In different ways than the ones Lena had learned to use when in need. Which might have been the reason why she had not clocked them at first, why she had seen the warmth but not the sadness, why she had thought on strong muscles and gentle softness and she had positively melted. And then she had gotten to see the more in depth version and still not the whole truth, not the entire truth, and she had been transfixed.
A scorned heart was cruel. One that spoke back with her brother's voice, that wrote truths on the back of her eyelids of how everyone lied to her, on how no one trusted her, on how easy, how guillible, how stupid had she been... and it bled through her until nothing else was left.
"... I know what I said and I know what I did."
And so she kept on speaking. Since there was very little else she could do. Despite having the feeling that she had lost all amount or modicum of goodwill the other woman might have felt for her back when.
But she wished for it, she now realized. And there were many other words she wished she was able to say. She looked as Kara nodded, looked down before peering over her glasses, her gaze searching in a way that made Lena pause: they had seen each other with and without the glasses on the other woman's face already, with and without both realities coexisting at the same time. But it had been longer since Lena had allowed herself to not squash the flare of affection she felt beyond the pain. Pain she had tried to negate, to deny, to transform into energy that would propel her forward: she needed no friends but pawns, she needed no warmth but movements, calculated and considered weeks prior as plans unfolded. She needed the cold reality that would push her away from Kara's apartment, from her arms and her eyes and the words that always pushed her back into thinking herself important enough for others to care.
The blonde turned and sat at the couch, her profile cutting through the light; one that looked less muted and yet lacking saturation to the point in which Lena felt it on the back of her tongue: as if a flavor had disappeared and she had not been made aware before but knew now. And perhaps was that lack of sunlight, whatever there was halo-ed around Kara, framing her features, but Lena kept on talking, positioning herself just diagonal enough so she was able to speak, to not feel her throat closing up as moments kept on passing and silence extended beyond her own comfort levels.
"I was so sure I was different than them." She pressed her hands together and revered on the small sound her knuckles as they popped: a vague source of discomfort she welcomed in. "There are so many studies showing how children who grow up in identical situations show entirely different traits. I was not Lex." She stopped there, for a spell, almost expecting for Kara to interrupt her. She did not. "Through my own hubris I believed that that alone would exonerate me. But it was never..." Her voice broke.
She hugged herself tight and she saw there a tremor just as she glanced up once again, Kara's hands opening and closing around her knees, the phantom of a hug warming her skin in a way that made Lena blink, considering: had Kara moved quick enough for her not to notice it? Had she thought about it?
Would have she accepted the hug if she had not?
The last question was the easiest but the previous one made the back of her throat itchy as she swallowed: how much of that would be automatic, how much would be the expected reaction.
She persevered, the words forming at the back of her mouth; round and broken still. "It was never about not being factually able to *be* Lex but how further was I capable to walk into a path thinking that I was the only one smart enough to guide the belief and hope for a better future." Lena knew that she might already be far too late, that her own anger was still there, bubbling over, that she could not deny nor pretend for her words to have been said and her deception to have been real.
At the end, she had indeed cried her eyes out, had imagined how much did she want to hurt Kara as a way of getting back for her own broken heart. The bud of... something, of infatuation maybe? Of connection? Of... a word she had yet found herself lacking to properly describe. That had been what she had tried to squash, what she had tried to analyze as detachedly as possible so she was able to use it, to feed it so she was able to use it. She had seen the pain there as well; Kara's eyes reaching for her as she had turned and left the Fortress and every moment afterwards, decision made and future set in a project that now, devoid of any abysmal thought of how her truth was one and real and unique, she was capable of seeing as having been born dead. As dead as the future she feared would she have now with the woman in front of her, whose fingers curled and extended over and over again in a mimic of Lena's own mannerism and yet so infinitely *Kara's* that Lena wished to be able tor reach and touch and grasp and bring them to her lips, kiss them, promise friendship or... something, that something else, that other word, the one that had eluded her, that kept weaseling away from her.
"Absolutism is never the answer. Not for Lex, not for..." She stuttered. "My brain is my strength. But I must keep checking myself, have others help by making me think outside of it. Because I was hurt. For honest, valid reasons. But. Turning myself into my own version of my brother was not the answer for it. And I cannot expect forgiveness. I know is not as easy." She chocked there, she did not quite know how much she truly hoped for forgiveness, she herself wished for words of atonement from the other woman after all. But if she was able to make everything stop for a second longer so nothing mattered outside that single moment she would ask for proximity, for a glance, for something that gave her the signal that their relationship, the companionship, the way Kara always reached for her, always felt compelled to do the same, was still there and not erased. Not turned and transformed and poisoned in a way that made her want to hurl. "I cannot. But I want to help and I want..."
She had not thought what would she say beyond those words. She had gone over what she wanted to say of course. Had had the time for that as she had Lex's with the reality of not only her idea and how far gone she had been but the realization that she had kept her eyes closed for far too long. Human -no- mortal lives had been affected. She had helped it happen. She had walked gleefully alongside his plans. She had broken word for word the trust she had tried to construct when she had repeated how different she was from her brother, from everything.
And she had thought about Kara. About how Kara had tried to give her opportunities, how much she had seen that in the way she had called for her, in the absolute abject horror she had seen when Lex's cannons had almost blew her off as Lena herself tried to call them off: no ability to warn Kara, not truly knowing how would she. And yet.
Kara had wanted to believe that she would listen. She had felt broken and betrayed and left abandoned. She still felt the rage of it, simmering through her words; valid and true but tempered in a way by the horror of not being able to negate what she had brought in: upon herself, upon Kara, upon others. So many, nameless others.
She did not have the audacity to finish the thought. Not out loud at least. Not to Kara. She wished however, for more time.
"I don't want to speak about the past." Kara's voice was still cold, syllables short and curt and not quite Kara's, not really, the cadence lacking a certain familiarity that cut as deeply as any weapon would do.
And Lena folded, tucked her admission away as she thought back on gentle eyes and warm smile and how dejected and full of ire and brokenheartedness had she been when she had thought that the person she might have been falling for had kept secrets, had kept her away from the most fundamental part of herself. Had she not deserved...?
"Let me help with this." Her voice carried over and she moved closer to Kara now, footsteps echoing slightly, the living room feeling emptier than the cozy version she had once known off. "I have the knowledge, I can do it."
*I want to be close to you again*
She halted her tongue for that last bit; there were still far too many other things to say. And yet...
As Kara called the others, a plan already beginning to form, Lena thought back on what she had, on what she had wanted, on what she had had. On what Lex had told her she had, what she would be able to get, what she had hoped to have.
And every single path led her back to Kara. Multiple, intricate paths she found she would need to work with. She would need to accept the loss of what had become what she had put all weight of her own importance. A mistake. One that had made her brittle. One she would not make again.
The details, the call for her hands to reach for Kara's, the way her lips longed for a kiss, would need to be replaced when anger did not fuel her, when hate was not the word about to fall from her. When hurt and loss and lack of a proper place to stand and be and talk, would be less. And then...
Then, maybe, she would be able to allow herself to not negate that she had been falling for her best friend.
Perhaps.