Archive of Our Own

Lena is worried. And she doesn't worry often. But when her girlfriend left their date last night with hurried excuses and a promise of a text later, she’d been concerned. Now it was 10am the next morning and she hasn't heard from Kara since. Her texts and calls are going unanswered, she's not at work, and she can't get through to Alex either. Which is why she's outside Kara’s apartment now, knocking on the door, desperately waiting for a response.

But her knocking goes unanswered and Lena's worry increases. She fiddles with her keys in her hand, one of which is a key to said apartment, one that Kara gave her for emergencies. Despite her worry, Lena smiles to herself as she remembers the day that Kara gave her the key, the shy smile on her face as she did.

Lena shakes herself from the memory, remembering that she's here because she can't find her girlfriend. She figures this is enough of an emergency to use the key so with only slight hesitance, Lena lets herself into Kara's apartment.

A quick glance around gives her no indication of whether the blonde has been here or not since they'd seen each other last but Lena ventures further into her apartment, has to check all the rooms to see if she's there, and panic if she's not.

Lena’s at her bedroom door now and she takes a deep breath, hand resting on the handle, not sure what she'll do if Kara's not there.

She pushes the door open and stops at the sight in front of her. Whatever Lena had expected when she walks into Kara's room, it wasn't this. She'd hoped that she'd find a single female occupant in the bed, and she has, it's just not the female she'd been expecting.

"Supergirl?" The name falls from her lips without her consent, loud enough to cause the woman in front of her to stir but not to wake.

Immediately thoughts start rushing through her mind as she tries to figure out what she's walked in on.

Her first thought was that Supergirl could've ended up in Kara's apartment by mistake, but then she remembers her girlfriend knows Supergirl and maybe Supergirl had just needed a place to crash and had ended up here. A second, less pleasant thought, crosses her mind, that Kara's cheating on her with Supergirl. Lena dismisses that thought immediately, she trusts her girlfriend completely, knows she would never cheat on her, even if sometimes she can tell that Kara isn’t being entirely honest with her.

But then another thought flashes through Lena’s mind and she knows immediately this one is true. She can see it now, as she studies Supergirl’s face, seeing the slope of her jaw and the curve of her lips. Lena’s mind goes back to other things too, like the way Kara had been reluctant to let out her hair, take off her glasses, the first time they’d slept together. Or the way Kara sometimes had to leave, with rushed excuses which weren’t always believable but Lena trusted her anyway, knew there was a reason why Kara wasn’t telling her the whole truth. But Lena knew the truth now, Kara is Supergirl.

And now that Lena knows, she can’t believe she didn’t see it before, they literally have the same face. Lena has studied Kara’s face, both while she’s asleep and while she’s awake and maybe the only thing that stopped Lena from noticing the similarities in their faces, with or without glasses, was the fact that once Lena set her eyes on Kara, everyone else paled in comparison to the girl who had stolen her heart. Maybe if she’d paid a bit more attention to Supergirl she would’ve seen the truth sooner, would’ve realised that the alien who had saved the city (and Lena herself) on multiple occasions was actually her girlfriend.

Supergirl stirs again and Lena can’t help but smile as she takes of her coat and shoes, places them on the floor, then climbs onto the bed beside Kara. All her worries and concerns are gone now, melted away with the fact that she knows Kara is safe. She must have had to leave their date for Supergirl-related business last night which probably exhausted her which has lead to where Lena’s found her now.

Lena reaches forward and brushes some of the hair from Kara’s face, causing her to stir again though this time Kara’s eyes blink open.

“Lena?” Kara says, confusion clear across her face, voice rough with sleep.

“Morning,” Lena smiles, hand now resting on Kara’s cheek, fingers tangled in her hair.

Kara smiles too, she’s not exactly going to complain about waking up next to her beautiful girlfriend. Kara leans forward and presses her lips to Lena’s and Lena hums at the contact.

“What are you doing here?” Kara asks, noticing that Lena is dressed for work.

“I was worried about you,” Lena admits, “you left in a rush last night and I couldn’t get hold of you this morning so I came by to see if you were ok.”

Kara smiles softly at her girlfriend, she doesn’t like that she’s made her worry but she likes that fact that Lena cares enough to worry, cares enough to come by to check if she’s ok, “sorry, it was a long night, next time I’ll text to let you know I’m fine.”

Lena smiles, “and how’s Winn? What was your excuse for leaving this time, something about his dog? I didn’t know he had a dog.”

Kara panics, she really needs to get better excuses for leaving, but this is the first time Lena has ever called her out for the fact that that’s what it was, and excuse. What if Lena thought it was a lie to get out of their date? Not because Supergirl was needed elsewhere when she couldn’t tell Lena that.

Kara scrambles for what to say, she doesn’t want Lena to think she doesn’t care for her, she loves her, but she also doesn’t know what to say that won’t reveal her secret. She wants to tell Lena, she really does, and has tried to several times already, but she always gets scared. What if Lena sees her differently once she knows? Kara trusts Lena, knows she would never reveal the truth to anyone, and Kara knows she’s not her brother, but that doesn’t stop the small amount of fear that settles in her chest that Lena would treat her differently if she knows the truth.

“I…yeah…Winn, his dog, we had to take him to the vet, it was bad.” Kara stumbles over her words, tries to make them make sense, she really needed to think of a better excuse in advance next time.

“Oh yeah?” Lena asks, feigning concern, “what was wrong with him?”

“He went blind,” Kara blurts. Oh Rao, what was she saying? She cringes internally, there’s no way that Lena believes what she’s saying.

Kara’s eyes go wide when Lena does the exact opposite of what Kara’s expecting. She’d expected anger, or confusion, expected Lena to ask why she was lying, but what she didn’t see coming was Lena bursting out laughing.

“Lena?” Kara questions when Lena’s still laughing a minute later, tears forming in her eyes.

“You really are a terrible liar,” Lena finally manages to say, grin on her face as she speaks.

“No I’m not,” Kara says, her voice almost a whine, pout on her face.

“Winn’s dog went blind? Winn doesn’t even have a dog.” Kara goes to interrupt but Lena’s still talking, “and don’t even get me started on some of the other excuses you’ve used when you’ve had to leave. One of my favourites was that Alex needed someone to go with her to the dentist, her face was priceless when I asked her about that a few days later.”

Kara’s eyebrows furrow, “you know I’ve been lying to you?”

“At first I didn’t but it didn’t take me long to realise your reasons were fake, some were pretty ridiculous.” Lena had been hurt when she’d realised she was being lied to but she trusted Kara. If she hadn’t have walked in this morning and seen Kara in her Supergirl outfit, Lena wonders how long it would’ve taken before she’d confronted Kara about her lies, or whether Kara would’ve told her the truth first.

“And you still stuck around?” Kara asks, had Lena really known she’d been keeping secrets from her this whole time?

“I figured you had a good reason to lie and I trusted you and thought you’d tell me the truth eventually.” Kara is shocked, what did she do to deserve someone as good as Lena? “And usually I don’t like being lied to but since you were out saving National City, I guess I can forgive you.”

Kara’s eyes go wide, “what are you say…I’m not Supergirl…that’s ridiculous…I-“

Lena cuts her off, “didn’t we just talk about lying?”

“But-“

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

Kara deflates, all the excuses she was trying to come up with leaving her mind, there’s no need to lie to Lena anymore, “how did you know?” She wonders how long Lena’s been hiding the fact that she knew the truth.

“Your disguise is literally glasses and a pony tail Kara,” Lena laughs, and that may not have been how she’d figured it out but now she’s realised the truth, she can’t believe she never saw it before. “And I’ve met you as both Supergirl and Kara so I can’t believe it took me until today to figure out who you were.”

“Today?” Kara asks. It’s not as if there’s anything different about today, sure her excuse last night was bad but Lena’s just informed her that they’ve always been bad and she knows Lena’s seen her asleep before, this was far from the first time they’ve been in bed together.

Lena grins and Kara can’t figure out what she’s missing, until Lena tilts her head down and gestures to Kara’s body. Kara looks down too then and she can’t help the laugh that bubbles from her chest and falls past her lips, she’s still dressed as Supergirl.

“Oh,” Kara says, looking back up at Lena, “oops, I forgot I was still wearing that.”

Lena grins too, “so that was a bit of a giveaway as to who you really were too.”

Kara’s smile fades and she takes a deep breath, realising that Lena really does know who she is now, that there’s no more need to hide half of who she is. But Kara can’t help the worries that are already seeping into her mind, “are you ok with the fact that I’m an alien?”

Kara braces herself for Lena’s response because she knows it has the ability to break her. Kara loves Lena with all that she is and she doesn’t know what she’ll do if Lena can’t accept the fact that she’s not human.

But all of Kara’s worries were unfounded as she saw Lena still smiling at her. Lena shifted closer so their bodies are pressed together, foreheads touching as Lena spoke softly, “I don’t care whether you’re an alien or not, you’re still Kara and that’s who I love. And you’re Supergirl and I love her too. I love every part of you and I’m glad I can finally see all of you because it only makes me love you more.”

Lena presses their lips together, can feel the tears that fall from Kara’s eyes as she’s so close.

“Thank you,” Kara whispers, lips brushing Lena’s as she talks, “I love you too.”

They stay pressed together for a while, sharing soft kisses and holding each other before they both realise how late they are for work and they untangle from each other. Lena smiles as she looks up from collecting her coat and shoes from the floor and sees Kara standing by her bed, hair out, glasses off and even though she’s changed out of her Supergirl outfit now, she still looks just like her.

“You’re beautiful,” Lena grins, wondering yet again how she never realised that Supergirl was her girlfriend, it seems so obvious now.

“So are you,” Kara smiles, watching as her girlfriend lets her hair out since the hairstyle she had when she’d arrived is now ruined as a result of lying down and Kara’s hands.

“I’ll drop you at work?” Lena asks, not ready to leave her girlfriend yet, wondering belatedly if Kara usually flew to work.

Kara reaches out, taking Lena’s hand in her own and twining their fingers together, “sounds perfect.”

“And after work, we can have dinner? I want to learn all about Kara Danvers, all the things you couldn’t tell me before.”

“Kara Zor-El is my birth name,” Kara says, “and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

Lena smiles, pressing one last kiss to Kara’s lips before they leave the apartment, “I can’t wait.”