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Lena clenches her jaw as she walks out of the penitentiary, her eyes burning from the tears she dare not to shed and her firsts closed with so much force she can feel her nails breaking the skin of her palm. She is spiraling in angry thoughts of ‘how dare he treat me like this’ and ‘I'm the only one he has left’ but her thoughts are interrupted when a warm hand touches her shoulder and spins her around.
She's about to slap the hand away from her when she sees the red and blue she's so used to see flying around town. Her girlfriend, Kara Danvers, is facing her, an empathetic smile on her face as she says "I would ask how the meeting went, but by the looks of it, it didn't go very well, did it?" Kara drops the hand from her shoulder and interlaces it with Kara's own hands. She hisses in pain as her nails leave her palms.
"I guess I still had faith that Lex could change...he was always such a good person-" She looks down; she's not going to cry. "-I am crushed that he is like this, I am, but some people are just… bad and there's nothing more I can do for him." Kara doesn't say anything, doesn’t know what to say, so she embraces her.
After a few seconds, Lena asks. "What are you even doing here anyways? Dressed as Supergirl?"
"A little boy’s cat was stuck on a tree close by...since I was near I thought I would come pick you up, give you hmm-." Kara blushes lightly. “-a ride back to your place…” Kara gives her a soft smile, squeezes her hand as she says. "Because when I’m upset or overwhelmed with feelings flying usually helps me clear my mind…so if you want to I can fly around the city for a while.”
Lena looks at Kara, gives her a smirk. “Take me home, Supergirl.” Than gives her a peck on the lips. “Thanks for picking me up, Kara; it means a lot to me.” And Kara lifts Lena of her feet like she weights nothing, 'damn super-strength' she thinks, and holds her bridal style. Lena automatically puts her hands around the superhero's neck. "Just hold on tight, okay?" Kara says, and a moment later they are high up on the sky.
The sun is setting is National City, the sky tinted of orange and pink, the people down in the streets the same size as ants, stuck in traffic, rushing to go back home to their families and friends. Lena looks at her girlfriend, the red cape of her suit swinging in the wind like small waves in the ocean, her hair cascading down her back, not a string out of place, how’s that even possible, do Kryptonians have super hair, too? Lena wonders, knowing that her hair is a mess.
As they fly, Lena thinks about her brother, how he once made her feel like home but now he only makes her feel afraid. She thinks about her company, wonders if she’ll ever be able to outgrow the name Luthor, escape from its shadows. And she thinks about Kara, trying to imagine what she did to deserve someone as perfect as her, a girl who has lost everything and still manages to find beauty in everything. She thinks of how much she loves Kara Danvers.
When they land on her balcony the sun has already set, the city lights now glowing in the dark night. “Did the flying help?” Kara asks, holding herself in the air right outside her balcony.
“More than you can imagine.” Lena looks down, thinking she saw a flash of light down on the ground, but dismiss it, assuming it’s just her eyes playing tricks on her. “Do you wanna come inside? I can prepare us some dinner…and by that I mean I can order some pizza.”
Kara laughs, but nods her head no. “As much as I’d love to, I have to head back to the DEO.” Kara leans forward; her body hitting the balcony ledge. Holding Lena’s faces softly in her hands she whispers “I love you” and kisses her.
Lena isn’t sure if they kissed for a few seconds, minutes or an hour, kissing Kara makes her forget about everything. She whines when Kara lips part from her own. Kara gives a quick kiss on her cheeks and flies off after saying she’ll see Lena tomorrow.
..
..
Kara wakes up to an insistent noise. She groans, turning around on her bed and pulling a pillow over her head. She tries to drift off to sleep but she’s fully awake when she hears a familiar voice at her door.
“Kara! Kara!” Lena knocks on the door again. “Come on! You have super-hearing for Christ’s sake! We need to talk it’s urgent!” As she is about to knock again, the door opens, revealing a worried-looking Kara, wearing her PJs putting on her glasses.
“Lena! Are you ok? Did someone hurt you?” Kara asks, looking up and down Lena’s body trying to find any sort of bruises. When she doesn’t find any, she hugs the girl, with a little more force than she intended. Lena yelps but hugs her back. “What happened?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” They part from the hug and both walk into the apartment. “We have a media problem, though…” As she is speaking, she pulls a newspaper out of her purse and put it on Kara’s coffee table.
In big bold capitalized letters, the headline reads:
“SUPERGIRL – FROM HERO TO HOMEWRECKER?
NATIONAL CITY BIGGEST HERO HAS BEEN SPOTTED IN LENA LUTHOR’S HOUSE, CEO OF L CORP, WHO’S BEEN IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH JOURNALIST KARA DANVERS. THE SUPERHERO AND THE CEO WERE CAUGHT BY AN ANONYMOUS PHOTOGRAPHER IN A COMPROMISING POSITION”
The picture attached below is of her and Lena last night, kissing in the balcony.
“Oh my Rao… “The paper is shaking in Kara’s hand and she refuses to read the rest of the article. She drops down onto the couch not knowing what to do. She looks up at her girlfriend. “This is a mess, Lena.”
“I know, sweetie-” She sits beside Kara and puts an arm around her shoulders. “-but we are going to work it out, ok?” She squeezes her shoulder. “We’ll think of something.”
Kara only nods her head in agreement. She hears her phone ding with a new message and leans forward to grab it on the table. As she unlocks it, Kara is bombarded with messages. A few are from Alex, Winn and James, who know about Kara’s secret identity and about her relationship with Lena, asking how she’s going to deal with the problem. Others are from people she works with at CatCo, asking if she’s ok. There is even one from Cat Grant, calling Lena Luthor some colorful names. Kara would laugh if she wasn’t so worried.
Kara sighs and turns off her phone, she’ll deal with the messages later. “I have no clue of what to do, Lena. As much as I’d like, I can’t come out as Supergirl just because of this.” She drops her head in Lena’s lap. ‘I just wanted to make her feel better, I didn’t mean for this to happen’ Kara thinks in despair.
“We could say I kissed Supergirl because I was so overwhelmed and didn’t know how to thank her, so I simply kissed her.” Lena says as she caresses Kara’s head in her lap. “Nothing more than a platonic, ‘thank you’ kiss.”
Kara stares Lena. “I don’t think people would buy that.” Kara mumbles. “We look far from platonic in the picture…”
“Yeah, I suppose so.” Lena says, tired. “I can’t think of anything better, though.”
They stay silent for a few minutes; the only motion in the run of Lena’s fingers going through Kara’s hair.
“Oh! We could say an alien shapeshifted to look exactly like Supergirl, just so he could destroy our love life and give Supergirl a bad image!” Kara says, excitedly.
Lena snorts. “Sweetie, why would an alien want to destroy the love life of a CEO and a journalist?” Lena asks, looking down. “And if they wanted to destroy your image, I imagine they could do worse things…” She sees Kara’s face change it to a look of disappointment and immediately feels bad for laughing. She drops a kiss on the blonde’s forehead. “But your idea actually made me think of something!”
Kara raises herself from her girlfriends lap and looks at her, eager to hear the idea.
“We could simply say Supergirl had no idea we were a thing. She’s always saving the city so she doesn’t have time to keep up with who is dating who and I was too surprised to pull away from the kiss.” Lena continues. “We could ask that friend of yours, J’onn, to shapeshift and look like you. We’d meet up somewhere, public so pictures can be taken, of Supergirl apologizing to you and me.”
“Lena! That’s brilliant!” Kara exclaims. “This idea can actually work out!” She moves forward, hugging Lena, a delighted squeal coming out of her lips. “I’m going to call J’onn right now!”
Kara makes the call and J’onn reluctantly agrees, saying he’ll only do this because her personal life is at stake. She calls Alex as well, to explain the situation, and receives a scolding about how she shouldn’t be going around doing non-Supergirl things while wearing the suit. She just takes the angry reprimand; she knows sometimes there’s no point in fighting Alex. She answers back the messages from her co-workers, reassuring them that everything is fine and Lena and she have already worked things out.
..
..
Lena releases a statement to the media by the afternoon. She explains, like she and Kara planned earlier, what happened between Supergirl and her the night before and that it was all a big misunderstanding.
Lena and Kara decide to meet up with J’onn in a park in the center of National City. They get there before he does, and Kara scans the people walking around the park, spotting a few paparazzi’s hiding behind trees and bushes.
J’onn shows up half an hour later, landing right in front of the bench Kara and Lena are sitting in, looking exactly like Supergirl. He repeats the words precisely like in the email Kara sent him a few hours earlier. She can hear the clicks of the cameras as the paparazzi’s take their pictures.
J’onn is a bit more robotic than the usual Supergirl, but they hope everyone will just assume it’s because she’s in an awkward situation and not because there’s a Martian playing her part. J’onn finishes the apology with the most heartfelt ‘I’m sorry’ he can produce.
Kara says a few words, reassuring the Fake-Supergirl that everything is fine and there are no hard feelings and that she’s actually a huge Supergirl fan. She hugs the copy of herself for a couple seconds and then let goes. Lena only nods in agreement to what her girlfriend said, and jokes that if she weren’t dating the prettiest most amazing girl in the whole universe, Supergirl would be her second choice. Both the girls laugh, the Fake-Supergirl gives an awkward smile and shakes Lena’s hand.
In a blink of an eye, Fake-Supergirl is out of there, and Lena and Kara sit back down on the bench.
“Do you think people will believe it?” Kara asks, adjusting her glasses in the bridge of her nose.
“We’ll have to wait and see.” Lena drops her head on Kara’s shoulder, snuggling her head against Kara’s neck. They interlace their fingers and watch as the sun begins to set in the horizon.
..
..
By the end of the night a few blogs have already picked up the story, expressing their deepest apologies to both Lena and Supergirl, for calling the latter a homewrecker and the former the names they did.
Both Kara and Lena sigh in relief when they start seeing the posts. They definitely won't be flying over National City any time soon...