Work Text:
“This is all the information you have?” Lena asked. She flipped through the folder. Well, folder would be overstating it. There was just one page with hardly any information. Just a name, picture, and place of work.
“My employer was informed that you like a challenge.”
“Liking a challenge isn’t quite the same as having information withheld,” Lena replied. She gave the picture a closer look. It looked like someone had taken a picture of a polaroid with a phone from 2006. “Not even a home address?”
“While my employer prefers speed, she doesn’t want you making any mistakes,” the man said, brushing off Lena’s question. “You have eight months or the rest of your payment is forfeited. My employer expects minimal uproar.”
The man dropped his briefcase on the floor, Lena’s expected half payment to buy her silence, and turned on his heel to leave. Lena watched him leave before looking at the single page again.
“Well, Kara Danvers, let’s see what we can learn about you.”
//
Kara Danvers seemed to be an enigma.
Typically, Lena would go through government files to procure information but Lena couldn’t find anything. Maybe she was in the witness protection program? It would explain why she was a target worth paying two million for, but the protection was too good for that.
Lena shoved down whatever interest she had in why Kara Danvers was a target.
To find Kara Danvers’ home address, she had attempted to go through CatCo’s employee files but she had to give props to whoever worked IT there because she couldn’t find a way to get through without undo notice. After that, Lena tried just straight up searching for Kara Danvers online. Her target didn’t even have a Facebook profile.
So, Lena resorted to good old fashioned stalking.
From how protected Kara Danvers’ files were, Lena honestly thought that this woman would have gone through more effort to hide where she lived when leaving her work place. Typically, everyone else who had their information so heavily guarded went through dozens of backways and turnarounds when they traveled.
But not Kara Danvers.
Kara Danvers was easy to track. Honestly, Lena couldn’t believe it at first and had staked out overnight just to make sure this girl wasn’t fucking with her. Over the next week, Lena followed Kara Danvers to find the best time to strike.
Strangely, Kara Danvers had a predictable routine. She would walk to a restaurant called Noonan’s every weekday for breakfast before heading to CatCo on the weekdays by bus or walking again, depending on how long she took to eat. On the weekends, she’d make a large stack of pancakes then head to the animal shelter that was a ten-minute walk from her apartment. Occasionally, a brunette woman would join her for breakfast. Afterwards, she’d return to her apartment and order an obscene amount of takeout, sometimes to be shared with the brunette woman who Lena was beginning to believe was Kara Danvers’ girlfriend.
If Lena cared more, she’d be concerned that Kara Danvers would develop scurvy. Really though, Lena just wished Kara Danvers did not eat like that because the sight made her nauseous.
At the end of the week, Lena had a list of incongruent aspects regarding Kara Danvers. For one, Lena was relatively certain that her target did not need the glasses that she wore. She only ever seemed to wear them when around others, except for the brunette woman. Another thing was that Kara Danvers’ physique did not match her food intake and energy output. Kara Danvers inexplicably had abs and other muscles despite the closest thing she got to doing a workout at any point throughout the week was lifting a golden retriever onto a bench. The last major incongruence on Lena’s list was that Kara Danvers did not behave the same way outside of her apartment as she did inside of her apartment. Outside, Kara Danvers was a bumbling mess. Inside her own apartment though, Lena would almost say Kara Danvers was poised and graceful.
By the end of the week, Lena had settled on Wednesday night being her best bet for striking Kara Danvers. After some recon at CatCo, Lena found that Cat Grant had a standing meeting with her lawyers every Thursday and Kara’s workday started an hour and a half later than usual. All of this led to Lena camped out on the roof of the building opposing Kara Danvers’ apartment, waiting for the brunette woman to leave.
Kara Danvers made it all the easier by leaving all her windows open, another peculiarity that Lena picked up on. It was the middle of February. Even if this was California and the forecast didn’t predict rain, it was still too cold to leave the windows open at all times. Lena had thought that there was just some strange draft that kept the apartment warmer but Kara Danvers always closed the windows for the durations of time that the brunette woman had been over. Lena would have been worried if she didn’t know that Kara Danvers would reopen the windows immediately after the brunette woman left.
So Lena waited. And waited. And waited. And suddenly it was midnight and the brunette woman would normally have left by now but it seemed like she was staying the night. Lena sighed and packed up. Next week, then.
Lena spent the next seven days following Kara Danvers to see if she was truly as predictable as she seemed to be. And she was. Everything she did was the same as last week, though the brunette woman didn’t go to Kara Danvers’ apartment on the same days. Lena also added another thing onto her list. Kara Danvers seemed friendly enough, but she only seemed to have three people in her life: the brunette woman and two coworkers. One was a Winslow Schott Jr. – the son of the Toyman, Lena noted – and the other was some nondescript girl by the name of Kelly.
For whatever reason, Kara Danvers tended to avoid people. The only one she spent any amount of time with on her own free will seemed to be the brunette woman other than on Saturdays where Winslow Schott Jr. and the brunette woman would come over and the trio would play board games.
And then it was Wednesday night again and Lena was, once again, camped out on a roof, waiting. It had just turned five and Kara Danvers was alone, but Lena wasn’t about to take the shot. The brunette woman didn’t have a set schedule like Kara Danvers did and could show up at any time from four to nine, so Lena still had to wait.
It was half past eight and Lena was ready to put this strange target behind her and move on to the next one. Kara Danvers had not proven to be as interesting as her client had made her out to be and, frankly, Lena was disappointed. Still, she was being paid.
Lena waited until ten past nine for Kara Danvers to move to stand in front of an open window. Kara Danvers moved to her bedroom area to change into sleep clothes and, when she was pulling off her shirt, Lena didn’t have an opening for her head and aimed at her heart through her back instead and pulled the trigger.
Mission accomplished.
Or not.
Kara Danvers finished taking off her shirt and looked around. Confusion was clear on her face but the problem was that she was very much alive. Which wouldn’t be entirely surprising considering how Lena knew that a shot through the heart didn’t necessarily ensure death. The surprising part was that Kara Danvers was entirely uninjured. Not even a little mark. Lena watched as Kara Danvers spun around like she was looking for something before she shrugged and finished changing.
What the fuck?
//
Okay, so maybe Kara Danvers was an interesting target after all.
At first, Lena had assumed that she had missed, but that was impossible. She was the best sharpshooter in this hemisphere. She could hit her mark from three miles away, a street’s width nothing to her. Then, Lena assumed that Kara Danvers was bulletproof like Superman, but that was ridiculous. Surely if Kara Danvers, who volunteered on weekends, had powers like that, she’d be saving the city.
Kara Danvers probably had something in her apartment that negated the bullet. Maybe something in the windows. Well, if a bullet wouldn’t work, then poison would do.
Two days later, on Friday night, Lena broke into the pizza delivery boy’s car and spiked Kara Danvers’ pizza with a specially formulated undetectable poison. It had to be Friday because that was the only day the brunette didn’t visit Kara Danvers in the last two weeks.
Lena quickly camped out again on the roof and watched Kara Danvers closely. Her target happily accepted and paid for the pizzas and, within an hour, she had finished all three of them. Just like it had every day for the previous weeks, the sight made Lena a little nauseous. Lena found herself once again wondering how Kara Danvers kept her physique.
And then Lena waited for the poison to take effect. It was a slower acting one that took about an hour after ingestion to activate, which usually gave her time to get away but, right now, she was curious. She had taken Kara Danvers too lightly at first and had failed. Now, she wanted to know that she had succeeded.
An hour and twenty minutes after Kara Danvers had eaten her first slice of pizza, she was still alive.
An hour and thirty minutes later, Lena wanted to scream. She had put enough on each individual pizza to kill even the Rock. Kara Danvers, who was easily only a third of his size, should be dead nine times over. But no, she was happily devouring ice cream without even so much as a stomach ache.
Lena grumbled internally and packed up her things.
Kara Danvers had to have a weakness. Lena was reconsidering Kara Danvers being bulletproof as a real possibility. That, or she had done some intense work even Lena hadn’t been willing to do. Lena made a mental note to reattempt accessing her target’s records. Maybe her previous theory of Kara Danvers being an assumed identity hadn’t been far off the mark after all. Though now it seemed less like Kara Danvers was a witness and more like she was a retired agent of some sort. If she was, Lena had to applaud the guise she had adopted. It also explained why her target’s behavior was so different depending on her surroundings. And whatever technology her target had inside her apartment that neutralized Lena’s bullet.
As Lena settled into her motel room yet again after trying to access Kara Danvers’ records and failing again, she decided that she needed to get closer to this Kara Danvers. She was going to find this weakness.
//
The next day, Lena had gone over to Kara Danvers’ apartment and had sweettalked the landlord into renting her the apartment directly next to Kara Danvers’ for the next year, relocating some unimportant man in the process.
Said unimportant man had been moved up three floors in the building and had signed an agreement to move out by Sunday morning after Lena plied him with four months of rent. Lena wondered how much Cat Grant was paying her assistant for Kara to be able to afford such an expensive place. Thankfully, she had accomplished seventeen missions in the last year so money was really no object.
She had everything timed perfectly so that her newly bought belongings would arrive in a truck just before Kara Danvers was due to arrive at her apartment. With her target’s helpful nature, it was easy to assume that Kara Danvers would voluntarily help Lena move her belongings up, giving Lena an opening to strike up a friendship. Given her target’s strangely reclusive nature, Lena did not bet on Kara making a first move to become friends with a new neighbor.
Lena stood just inside the door of the apartment building and waited for the tell-tale sign of blonde hair in the reflection of a window across the street before she went to the truck and made a show of moving one of the heavier boxes. Just as she expected, Kara Danvers stop next to her.
“Do you want help?” Kara Danvers had asked. Lena made a quick mental note to stop referring to her target by her full name in case she said it out loud.
“Yes, please,” Lena replied. She made sure that she looked grateful enough in response. She let Kara Danvers – Kara, Lena reminded herself – take the box before she went back to the truck and took a lighter box. “Thank you so much. I’m Lena, by the way.”
Sticking with her first name would keep her from slipping up. It would also keep some uncomfortable questions from cropping up in case she got any surprise visitors.
“I’m Kara,” Kara replied cheerily. Lena took note that Kara’s muscles were not just for show. That box was heavy even for Lena who spent two hours a day working out compared to Kara’s zero hours a week.
“It’s nice to meet you, Kara.” Lena smiled at Kara.
“It’s nice to meet you, too! Now which apartment are you in?”
“4C.”
“Really? I’m 4B!”
“Well then, it’s nice to meet you, neighbor,” Lena said with a grin.
Conversation flowed easily as they moved Lena’s belongings into her new apartment. Well, technically it flowed easily. She’d been trained to do this after all. She only had a minor fumble when Kara said she had recognized her from Noonan’s. Thankfully, Lena just brushed it off by saying she had been around the week before to scout out apartments.
Lena told Kara that she was a programmer that worked from home who had just moved from across the country, specifically mentioning how she didn’t have any friends in the area. Kara immediately invited her to eat breakfast with her the next morning.
Over the course of two hours, Lena learned a lot about Kara and wasn’t entirely sure what parts were factitious. For all she knew, Kara could be reciting a made-up backstory as well. She did learn that the brunette woman she had seen so many times before was Kara’s sister, Alex. She made a note to ask who looked like which parent when she actually met Alex because the two sisters looked nothing alike.
A part of her cursed because she had planned on flirting with Kara and potentially starting a relationship with her to become closer, but now Kara’s sexuality was in the wind. She made another note to ascertain Kara’s sexuality and hopefully salvage that plan. At least this meant there wasn’t a relationship that she’d have to put effort into ending.
Their interaction ended when Lena begged off Kara’s offer to help unpack and invite to eat dinner together. There were sensitive things that Lena didn’t want to chance Kara seeing and she was also pretty sure she never wanted to look at pizza again anyway. Kara only backed off after Lena promised that they’d get breakfast together.
“Thank you again for the help, Kara.” Lena gave Kara a once over, noticing how the woman hadn’t even broken a sweat while Lena could feel her own shirt sticking to her back. “You’re really strong.”
Kara shrugged and Lena noticed her cheeks tinging pink. “Well, I work out.”
Lena knew that was a lie but didn’t say anything about it.
“I can tell,” she said instead. She reached out and squeezed Kara’s bicep and watched Kara’s face redden. So maybe her flirting idea still had merit. She let her hand linger for a little longer than what could be considered strictly platonic before letting it drop back to her side. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Y-yeah,” Kara stuttered out. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Lena made sure there was a smile on her face as she watched Kara beat out of her apartment, face still red. Then she closed the door and it was time for work.
It took a couple of minutes for her to find the box labeled “Textbooks” and unpack things that were decidedly not textbooks. On her new coffee table sat two dozen microphones designed to listen in on the other side of the wall they were attached to and a console that would store everything they recorded. She went about securing each microphone to the wall her apartment shared with Kara’s. If she were lucky, she could get insight into Kara’s real backstory. Hopefully Alex and Kara talked about their real life whenever Kara’s sister visited.
Lena looked around her apartment and groaned. She really needed to unpack if she wanted to have a bed to sleep in tonight.
//
The next morning, Lena met Alex. Kara’s sister had been standing in front of Kara’s door when Lena stepped out of her apartment.
“Alex Danvers.” Alex stuck out her hand after her introduction. “I’m guessing you’re the new friend Kara spent last night texting me about?”
“Lena Thorul,” Lena replied, shaking the offered hand. “And I guess I am.”
“Any connection to Thorul Labs?” Alex asked.
Yes. “No, but I’d take advantage of their tech if I had one,” Lena answered easily. She wondered what kind of job Alex had that made her aware of Thorul Labs. It wasn’t a well-known branch of Luthor Corp. For the most part, only military and government personal were aware of it outside of a few private clients. It gave credence to her theory that one or both of the Danvers sisters were currently or had previously been agents of some sort.
“Pity.” Alex seemed like she was more upset at the idea that Lena didn’t have a connection. Lena tucked that information away in case she needed to bribe Alex later.
And then Kara was bounding out of her apartment and practically dragging Lena and Alex down to Noonan’s.
Breakfast with the sisters was eye-opening. Whereas Kara seemed to be warm and sunny, Alex was cold. Kara tended to ramble, only to be cut off with a sideways look from Alex at times when, Lena could only assume, Kara was about to talk about something she wasn’t allowed to talk about. If Kara had really been an agent, Lena wouldn’t have thought she was a good one if she hadn’t been trying and failing to kill Kara for the last two weeks.
Towards the end of breakfast, Alex had punched a hole in Lena’s theory by openly admitting that she was an agent for the FBI.
“Just a scientist, though,” Alex had said, but it was enough for Lena to doubt herself.
Later, when Kara and Alex had headed to work and Lena went back to her apartment, she tried to access Alex’s files only to find them too secure for Lena to gain access to. Alexandra Danvers did not work for the FBI. Lena had taken down FBI agents before and their files had been like an open book for her. No, Alex and Kara were part of something bigger. They were probably from some off the books organization.
Now Lena was excited.
//
Contrary to Lena’s previous belief, Kara could in fact cook more than just pancakes, something that she learned after Kara, one again, invited her over for dinner on Friday.
“Does dinner mean takeout?” Lena teased. “I don’t even order takeout and I think I know the delivery guy’s name.”
“I can cook,” Kara insisted. “Just tell me your favorite and everything will be ready by six tonight!”
“How about we keep with something simple like spaghetti?”
Kara pouted and insisted she could do better but Lena honestly didn’t want to risk food poisoning. Later that day, she really wished she had asked for her favorite food.
“This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten,” Lena practically moaned. She pushed the thought of it’s not every day your intended murder victim cooks you the best meal you’ve had in years into the furthest recesses of her mind.
“Do you trust me to make your favorite food now?” Kara asked, eyes entirely too hopeful.
Lena pretended to look contemplative but part of her was entirely for giving up this mission if it meant Kara would cook for her every single day of her life. Not that she was actually going to let this cardigan wearing girl be the reason Lena Luthor had a black mark on her record. “Promise not to laugh at what it is?”
“I take food very seriously, Lena,” Kara said, nodding.
“It’s corned beef sandwiches with champ,” Lena said. At Kara’s confusion, she continued, “Champ is mashed potatoes.”
Kara looked thoughtful for a moment and did the whole looking away and tapping on her chin while going “hmmm” bit before looking back at Lena.
“I’m having a small game night tomorrow and you could come over,” Kara said hesitantly. “I could have a sandwich making station or something instead of takeout.”
“And who would be at this game night?” Lena quirked an eyebrow at Kara.
“Well, me, obviously. Duh. And my sister and Winn, my friend from work. I think I finally managed to convince Alex to make a friend at work so I think she’s bringing someone named Susan? I don’t really know her first name because Alex always calls her Vasquez.” Kara hesitated for a second. “And you? Hopefully?”
“You already had me sold at sandwiches,” Lena said, reaching over to place a hand over one of Kara’s. “Is your sister really going to bring another FBI agent here?”
For whatever reason, Lena was looking forward to the next day.
Then the next day came and game night had been surprisingly fun.
Lena never thought herself as someone that would have any interest in something as lax as board games, but here she was, enjoying herself. Even though she had lost at pretty much everything other than Scrabble.
After Winslow Schott Jr – Winn – and Vasquez had left, Lena excused herself, saying that she had a conference call she had to attend to early the next morning. She finally managed to escape after Kara shoved all of the left over corned beef on her, not that Lena was actually complaining about that.
What Lena really wanted was to see what the Danvers sisters would talk about now that they were alone. Over the week, Alex hadn’t come over even once, but Lena never asked why. But now, she had an opportunity and she was going to take it.
As soon as she was in her apartment, she went to the console and stuck the attached earbuds into her ears.
“So Lena Thorul…” That was Alex.
“Don’t, Alex.”
Shit, did they know?
“You’re blushing.”
Oh.
“I don’t even know if I like girls.”
“You seem to like this particular girl.”
That was all Lena needed to know for the night.
Over the next two weeks, Lena kicked up her actions around Kara from “bordering not platonic” to “definitely trying to be more than platonic” and the two had spent most of Kara’s free time together. Lena was certain Kara had a crush on her, she just needed Kara to come to terms with it on her own.
Another week went by and Lena asked for Alex’s number under the guise of questions about tech things.
Lena: Hey, this is Lena. I got your number from Kara and wanted to talk to you about something.
Alex replied immediately.
Alex: What’s wrong?
Lena: Is Kara gay?
Straight forward. Alex’s reply wasn’t as fast as the first one.
Alex: Why?
Lena: With your blessing, I would like to ask her out
Alex: She’s her own person, you don’t need my blessing to ask her out.
Alex: She has a crush on you.
Alex: Hurt her and there won’t be a body to find.
Lena rolled her eyes. Whatever threat Alex could come up with didn’t scare her. Then, surprisingly, another text came through a few minutes later.
Alex: Wait, don’t ask her out. She has some sort of plan for you.
And then there was a frantic knocking at her door and, when she opened it, there was Kara standing in front of her with balloons, stuffed animals, a plate of sandwiches, and a covered basket rambling a mile a second.
“Kara. Kara!” Lena slowly took everything out of Kara’s arms and set them on her side table or on the floor. The balloons floated upwards. “Okay, slow down and start talking again.”
Kara took a deep breath and exhaled. “Will you go out with me?”
“You were rambling for too long and too fast for that to be the only thing you said,” Lena teased. “But yes, I will.”
And then Kara lit up and Lena found that it wasn’t hard to let her face mirror Kara’s. The time that she had spent with Kara was generally enjoyable, if she didn’t count the times Kara had eaten multiple pizzas in one sitting. Thankfully, she only saw that happen three times in over a month of living next door and being friends with her.
In the back of Lena’s mind, a little niggling was telling her that she was really looking forward to the date.
//
A month into dating Kara was when Lena next attempted something.
Lena had brought up her weapons collection and pretended to be shy about something others would find strange. Lena Luthor was very proud of her weapons collection, thank you very much. Kara didn’t need to know that, that wasn’t part of the plan.
The plan was to get Kara close enough to Lena’s WASP injection knife so that Lena could “accidentally” stab her with it.
Kara had a surprising amount of knowledge regarding weapons. This bright and cheery cardigan wearing angel-type person knew way too much about weapons. The agent theory was still being played around with in Lena’s head.
And then Kara had tripped and it was all too easy to “accidentally” have the knife fall on the side and –
Nope. Didn’t work. What the hell?
The knife should have stabbed through Kara’s stomach and then the compressed gas was supposed to go off like a gunshot but no. Kara had fallen right on top of the knife and the thing had gone off but Kara was fine. Just her shirt was slightly frozen.
Lena, playing the part of a good girlfriend, started fretting over Kara and apologizing and Kara just waved her off, laughing.
“I guess you got a faulty knife, you should get that replaced or something,” Kara laughed. “You have some really cool things, though. I hope not all of them are faulty.”
Lena was wide-eyed and shocked, but that wasn’t pretending. That knife was not faulty. She had killed people with it before. What the ever-loving fuck had she gotten herself into? But some part of her was glad it didn’t work. Though it wasn’t glad for the hole the size of a fist that was now in her floor.
//
Four months of being Kara’s girlfriend later, Lena got an answer for everything. This was two months since she had practically given up trying to kill Kara and two weeks before she was ready to formally had in the towel to her client.
She had gone through all the steps of being a good girlfriend. They had planned dates twice a week and Lena made sure to pay after she finally found out how much Kara earned per year. She had learned that Kara was adopted and had met Eliza, Alex’s mom and Kara’s foster mom. They had even traded “I love you”s. Lena ignored that the phrase didn’t feel all that fake. She ignored that it felt nice to say it and that the person saying it back meant it. She had been extremely supportive when Kara had told her she was asexual and she never let Kara feel uncomfortable with that fact about herself.
After all that, Kara had sat her down for a conversation.
“You’re an alien?” Lena whispered.
“Specifically, a Kryptonian,” Kara replied meekly.
“A Kryptonian.” That’s what Superman was. Oh god, everything made sense now. No wonder nothing ever worked. No wonder Kara’s life was so well hidden, they probably didn’t even exist. “You’re a Kryptonian.”
“D-does that change anything?”
“I have to go,” Lena said abruptly. At Kara’s panicked face, she made her own look softer. “I’ll be back, I promise. Just give me some time.”
Kara nodded and let Lena walk out of the apartment unhindered.
Lena sent a message off to her client’s contact and went to her own apartment to grab the untouched briefcase from their previous and only encounter and armed herself before heading off. There was no fucking way she could kill a Kryptonian.
Not that she intended to tell them Kara was Kryptonian.
Surprisingly, the encounter didn’t end in bloodshed, though she did get sucker-punched. Surprisingly, they only demanded half of the prepayment back. Surprisingly, Lena didn’t know where to go from here.
She could go back to her life. She could move on to her next target. She could pick up everything she had here and move on. But she didn’t want to. She had made a nice little life for herself here where she had a good mother figure, a girlfriend, and an almost-sister. But to stay meant that she’d eventually be found out and, if she wanted to stay, she’d have to come clean and coming clean meant that she might lose this nice little life. She might have covered her tracks at all points, but one could never be too sure.
Somehow, Lena found herself back in front of Kara’s door without having meant to bring herself there. And then she was knocking. And then Kara had opened the door and fretted over the bruising on her face and Lena couldn’t bring herself to say anything because, right then, right there, this was something she hadn’t had before and she was about to ruin it with whatever words she said next.
“I’m a Luthor,” Lena finally spat out. Kara didn’t even so much as blink as she continued fretting over Lena’s bruise. “Well?”
“Is that supposed to change something?” Kara asked. “You’re not your brother and Alex ran an entire check on you when I said I liked you.”
“I’m just as bad as him,” Lena replied.
“It’s not like you’re an alien-hating mad scientist out to kill me.”
Lena laughed. Alien-hating she was not but she had been out to kill Kara at first.
“Luthor or not, I still love you, Lena.”
And Lena was going to take this. It wasn’t perfect. Kara didn’t know about her past and, with any luck, she never would. If everything went as she thought it would, Lex would be arrested eventually and Luthor Corp would be passed down to her and she’d have a real job, one that didn’t involve killing people.
“I love you, too.”
Maybe everything was going to go to shit later, but, for now, she’d take this. For now, she could pretend everything was going to be fine.