Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The next two weeks pass in limbo.

**

Kara catches up with Lena for coffee in between deadlines, always arriving in a flustered blur, shirt collars crooked around the arch of her neck, buttons skewed in her hurry. Lena fixes them with careful hands, fingers brushing the concealed blue spandex underneath. It’s an idea she is getting used to, and she laughs when Kara ducks her head in thanks, finding those high points of red in the apple of Kara’s cheeks.

Kara scribbles notes on napkins while they sit, already outlining her next article, her mind churning breathlessly fast. Lena leans close, watching Kara craft her words with steely-precision, tongue caught between her teeth. Lena once makes the mistake of fitting her hand over Kara’s knee as she tilts closer, breath falling warm on Kara’s cheek, and Kara tenses, accidentally snapping her pen in half with one hand, ink coloring her palm black.

Lena lets Kara glare, wiping at the spots of ink that stain Kara’s cheeks, her nose, the dimple of chin. Her fingers linger on the curve of Kara’s bottom lip and she pretends that Kara doesn’t see her shiver.

**

Lena spends a handful of days holed up in her office, Jess sitting across from her, tablets and intricately color-coded excel documents spread across the desk, the white lacquer completely hidden by the expanse of their planning.

Lena volunteered L Corp to host National City’s Technology Expo, another key facet in her 37 point rebranding plan. The scheduling and preparation is immersive, and she finds herself lost in the organizational intricacies—the bureaucratic push and pull, the thrill of coaxing some larger cause into being, the power of creation.

She understands it keenly—that lust for power that consumed Lex—and sometimes she wonders if her appetite is too great, if she will succumb to his starved ways. But then she thinks of her, of Kara, of her Supergirl, warm and just and mighty, thinks of the people they both pledge to protect, and it’s almost easy to choke the temptation down.

Jess looks exhausted, she has a pencil stuck behind both ears and one in her hand. Lena, equally tired and caffeine-deprived, is too endeared to mention it to her. Lena reaches out, tapping at the back of Jess’s hand carefully.

“You can go home, Jess,” she says quietly, smiling comfortingly as her secretary snaps her head up to look at her, “You deserve it.”

Jess makes to stand before pausing, “Are you sure, Ms. Luthor?”

Lena ducks her head, “Of course, you did good work today.”

Jess grins, shy, “The expo is going to be amazing, Ms. Luthor.”

“I hope so,” Lena says, suddenly even more exhausted by the mere thought of the thing, “God knows we need this win.”

Jess pauses once more in the doorway, backlit by the hall’s dim light, a hint of concern worrying her brow, “You’ll go home soon, too?”

Lena leans back in her chair with a sigh. “Soon.”

She considers calling Kara, but thinks better of it. Being with Kara makes her feel messy and loose and impossibly exhilarated, a contradiction to everything that Lena was bred to be. Kara herself is a lesson in incongruous identity, a duality of soul, of existence: a life lived in halves, with Lena forbidden in every direction.

What they are, what they could be, exists in defiance of every facet of their lives: a Luthor and a Super, inherent good and presumed evil, a poet and a tactician, a romance forbidden by nearly every law of man and nature. Lena drops her head to her hands, pressing hard at her temples with her fingertips. She feels like a complete and utter cliché, wanting the one thing that she shouldn’t get to have.

She clicks on her phone anyway, startling when an alert pops up on her home screen: Breaking: Supergirl shuts down robbery on Laurel Street, Two Suspects in custody.

A confusing mix of apprehension and pride tugs hard in Lena’s stomach, and she locks her phone, dimming the screen to black. She looks down at the papers on her desk, the meticulous arrangements and financial projections, the blueprints for her own exhibition, and finds it difficult to concentrate on anything but Supergirl, caught somewhere in the murky city dark, radiant and star-spun.

A legend in the making.

Lena sits at her desk and thinks of the stories that will be written about Supergirl, ballads of heroism and peace, while Lena’s family is made story-book villains by the pens of the victors.

Lena wonders where she will fall on those pages. She wonders if she belongs there at all.

**

Lena doesn’t make it back home until well after midnight. The apartment feels emptier after dark, but Erebus, shadow slick and aloof, slinks out from under the couch to wind around her ankles, purring pleased when she scratches behind his ears.

She kicks off her heels at the threshold of the living room, running a hand through her hair, teasing out any knots before scraping it into a loose ponytail, eager to escape the irritation of a pristine reputation, physical or otherwise. She walks around the borders of her living room, dragging her fingers along the edges of the walls, stopping at the sleek jut of a monochrome bookshelf, Erebus following at a distance. It’s mostly textbooks, old tombs from college, pages heavy with ink and study, but one slim paperback stops her. She wiggles it free from the shelf, flipping it in her hands to read the title.

It’s a collection of famous plays, a requirement for some requisite Lit class, a box to check off before she began to climb the ranks of Harvard’s engineering program. Lena smooths a hand over the cover before opening the novel, creasing the spine with careful fingers. She flips through the pages, past Medea, Antigone, The Crucible, before she lands on something slightly more familiar: Romeo and Juliet.

She dog ears the page before tossing the book to the couch, padding to the kitchen in bare feet to reheat take-out for an excessively late dinner. Erebus watches, ever-indifferent, from his spot on the arm of the sofa. Lena curls up with her dinner and the book, feet tucked under her legs, rifling through the pages with a curious hunger, thinking of Kara’s texts from so many days before.

She’ll read for a little longer, she tells herself, then she’ll turn the TV to some mindless Home Improvement show, retreat back to the norm. Lena turns to the next page, tracing the easy cadence of the words with one absent fingertip.

Just a little while longer.

**

Friday night finds Lena propped at the sleek counter of a local bar.

It’s classy enough that she won’t be troubled, but not so lavish that Lena is forced to rub elbows with all of National City’s Most Reputable, the high-up business partners and politicians she tries to keep confined to the walls of her office. The dim lighting is enough to ensure some semblance of anonymity, and Lena takes a long pull from her beer, tilting her face into her drink while she observes the people around her. A crowd of businessmen loosen their ties at the high seats of the bar, a few misplaced college kids lean by the door, and women shift restlessly at the room’s scattered tables, lips glossy and hair styled. Lena catches one woman’s eye, smiles, accepting the pointed look politely before turning back to her drink.

Any other time she would consider the flirtation, would back the woman into the bar bathroom or the backseat of a cab, but Lena’s heart beats are syncopated in time to the memory of Kara’s name, her voice, her smile, and she’s helpless with the sound of it.

The bartender leans at the counter, elbow propped against the high ledge of the bar, head twisted to look at the muted TV mounted above the mirrored back wall of the room. Lena’s reflection is fractured by shelves of high-priced alcohol and rows of bottled beers, the glass sweating rivulets of condensation, water glinting in the low light.
The bartender screws up his face at something he sees on the television screen, exhaling a small noise of concern under his breathe. He catches Lena looking at him and smiles politely, gesturing loosely at the screen.

“She can really take a hit,” he says. He angles his face back up to the TV, narrowing his eyes in a wince, “But it’s still hard to watch.”

Lena creases her brow in confusion, tilting her face to the images in question, an absent search for context, expecting nothing more than two boxers, jabbing strikes in the clean confines of a ring.

But it’s not boxers, and there’s nothing clean about the carnage being broadcasted live to the small downtown bar.

It’s Supergirl, currently being thrown headlong through a concrete pillar, the support crumbling at the force of her. Lena sits up straight, a heady jolt of fear ripping through her chest, the room silenced to a deafening ringing in her ears, heart thudding hard beneath her collarbone, each beat magnified in the numb hollow behind her eyes.

The camera captures Supergirl lying crumpled in a divot of asphalt, the pavement caved to meet her, her shoulders heaving heavy as she struggles to stand. Lena braces her palms against the bar, startling out of her seat, jaw clenched tight, breath stalled as her universe narrows to the grainy replication of Kara’s pain pinned to the confines of the TV’s rectangular frame.

The cape that drips onto the grit of fractured asphalt is all Supergirl, and so is the hard flex of muscle that ripples through her bowed back, the red boots scrabbling against the ground. But the expression twisting her face, a grimace tinted with unnerving determination, the flash of steely eyes, the set of a soft, curved mouth, that’s all Kara, Kara, Kara.

Supergirl—Kara—the unearthly figure framed by the dust and smoke and rubble and disaster—pushes herself to her feet, and Lena tenses, heartbeat caught high in her throat. Supergirl is poised, shoulders back and feet planted, on the screen, too imperial to be entirely captured by the pixels and wavelengths of this limiting modern technology.

She pushes off the desecrated pavement with a flex of lean calf, blurring to super-sonic as she thunders toward her opponent. The camera loses her to the messy speed of it all, and by the time it catches up, the fight scene is nothing more than rubble, its challengers spiraling away into inky night, arms locked in an endless grapple.

The camera focuses back on a harried camerawoman, white-knuckling her microphone, hair mussed and cheek streaked with soot.

“That was just Supergirl, fighting someone of,” she pauses, head tilted, listening to the voice presumably speaking quickly into her earpiece, “possibly alien origin.” The woman, on instinct, cranes her head toward the night sky, and Lena longs to be there doing the same, searching the midnight for her hero, lost in the dark. “More details to come.” A weighty pause, a sharp exhalation. “Back to you Elaine.”

Lena turns away from the screen, collapsing back into her seat, struggling to deal with the surge of worry and doubt and awe that battle high in her chest. She brushes off the bartender’s concern, managing a small smile, waving her hand slightly.

He sets another beer in front of her anyway. “You look like you need it,” he says, offering her another smile and a light tap on the counter beside her hand.

Lena nods quickly, “Thank you,” she says, pinching her lips tight as she reaches for her purse. She scrambles for her phone in the bag, fingers clumsy with dread. She struggles to navigate the lock screen, mundane acts turned arduous in the eclipsing numbness of her shock.

She types out a few panicked texts to Kara before she remembers to breathe, holding her breath tight in her chest, coaxing her heartbeats back to normality, calming the stuttering crests of her pulse back to their familiar metronome. She sets her phone on the bar, face up, and fixes her eyes on a point along the back wall, the screen catching in her peripheral.

Lena waits.

**

Lena only lasts ten minutes before she tries to call her. She considers those 600 seconds an impressive feat, each one infused with the weight of a lifetime.

She closes her eyes as the phone rings endlessly, massaging her temple with two fingers, face set in rigid composure. Her only tell is the anxious, rapid tapping of her foot against the leg of her stool.

The door of the bar opens, letting in a gust of cold air and a surge of noise, the voices of a crowd loitering on the curb outside filtering into the bar, muting the shrill electronic ring of Kara’s unresponsive phone on the other line.

Lena frowns in annoyance, pressing her cell closer to her ear and shooting a look of displeasure at the bar’s entrance, ready to roll her eyes at another surge of frenzied college kids.

For the second time that night, Lena’s expectations are entirely shattered.

It’s Kara, framed in the doorway of the bar, looking harried, messy, and entirely and impossibly beautiful. Her hair is caught in a half-hearted ponytail, more down that up, stray hairs clinging to the back of her neck, tucked carelessly behind her ears. One sleeve of her shirt is rolled above her elbow, while the other is limp at her wrist, cuff unbuttoned and disheveled. Lena is almost positive her skirt is on backwards.

Lena doesn’t thinks she has ever been more attracted to someone in her life.

The stark light of a neon sign fractures through the street side window, illuminating Kara’s face in an electric glow, warming the hard line of her cheekbones, glinting sharp off her glasses’ lens. Lena feels that desire, tempered so long into obedience, claw hungry in her chest. Caught in the enchantment of Kara’s allure, Lena struggles to remember any of the reasons why she is starving herself of this.

Kara begins to weave her way through the crowd, muttering apologies as she pushes through throngs of half-drunk businessmen, sparing a tight, polite smile for a suited man, more intoxicated than most, that she has to gently nudge out of her way.

Her eyes are trained on the clusters of table to Lena’s left, scanning, and Lena realizes she’s looking for someone, looking for her, and the intoxicating high of her relief isn’t enough to entirely dull the selfish rush of pleasure she feels at the eager way Kara searches the room.

Lena can pinpoint the exact moment that Kara’s eyes find her, watches a smile pull involuntarily at Kara’s mouth, catching at her eyes, dimpling her cheeks.

(Lena saw her first, Lena always sees her first.)

Kara changes direction toward the bar and Lena pushes away from her stool, too dizzy with relief to closely monitor her actions. Her rational thoughts scream at her to act adult about this, to ask Kara if she is okay, to maturely inquire about the status of her health and safety, perhaps allow herself a quick touch to Kara’s shoulder if the moment feels right.

But then Kara is standing in front of her, hapless and needlessly apologetic and kind, so careful to keep a polite distance between them, respectful hands caught behind her back, head tilted to the side in concern.

Lena throws herself forward, arms looping around Kara’s neck, burying her face in Kara’s chest and marveling at the life of her. Her skin feels impossibly warm, and Lena pulls away just far enough to study Kara’s face, her hands coming up to trace carefully at the strong lines of Kara’s chin, her jaw, painting careful fingertips down the soft curve of Kara’s cheek.

She smells like gunpowder and fire, but the skin below the parted collar of Kara’s shirt—three buttons undone—is deceptively clean, and Lena traces her eyes from the divot of Kara’s neck to the long line of her throat, aching to bite and consume and protect.

She isn’t wearing her suit, Lena realizes, she must have discarded it somewhere between the fighting ground and the bar, and Lena feels another impossible throb of affection. Kara had dropped everything to find her, and Lena isn’t sure that she deserves this kind of adoration.

Kara is looking at her carefully, bottom lip tucked into her mouth, supplicating herself to Lena’s near-frenzied examination. At some point during Lena’s desperate hug, Kara’s hands found their way to Lena’s waist, and she keeps them there, splayed over the jut of her hipbone, fingers catching at the waistband of Lena’s skirt.

“Are you okay?” Lena finally manages, feeling keenly embarrassed at her overreaction, at the cling of her hands on Kara’s skin, but she’s still too shaken to convince herself to let go.

Kara hums her affirmation, nudging imperceptibly forward, “Are you okay?”

Lena laughs, this startled abrupt thing, cupping her hand at Kara’s cheek, “I’m not the one who just had a near-death experience.”

Kara pinches her mouth to the side, looking almost embarrassed at the attention, “It wasn’t that bad.”

Lena gestures desperately at the TV, feeling her voice pitching in residual panic, “I saw you,” she lowers her voice, acutely aware of the other patrons of the bar for the first time since Kara entered, “He threw you through a pillar.”

Kara shrugs slightly, careful not to jar herself from Lena’s hold, “It was just concrete.”

Lena opens her mouth to say more, feeling a wild blend of exasperation and heady relief. She moves her hand to gesture again but Kara catches it instead, folding Lena’s fingers in her own and bringing their hands to her lips, pressing a kiss to the center of Lena’s palm.

It effectively quiets her, sparking something low in her chest, and she feels embarrassment again, unaccustomed to losing her composure for anything. For anyone. She starts to return to her senses, to the world of logic, and she loosens her arms from Kara’s neck, taking a small step back.

Kara coaxes her toward the counter with a light hand on her lower back, waiting until Lena settles on her stool before she takes a seat at the one next to her, subtly inching it closer until their knees press close under the lip of the bar.

Lena takes a long sip of her drink, watching Kara out of the corner of her eye, half-worried that she will lose her if she looks away.

“I’m sorry I texted so much,” Lena says quietly, feeling heat rise in her cheeks, “the news broadcast just made it look so…”

Kara smiles, nudging at Lena’s leg with her own, “It’s okay, I don’t mind.” She frowns, “I’m sorry I worried you.”

Lena shakes her head, disbelieving, and reaches over to pinch at Kara’s hand, pausing to rub away another streak of soot that she finds smudged across the ridge of her knuckles, “How did you know where to find me, anyway?”

Kara laughs, “You come here almost every Friday, Lena. It wasn’t exactly a hard guess.” Her face softens, one hand moving to the surface of the counter, her fingers a breadth away from Lena’s own, “Mind if I join you?”

Lena nods over-eager, then—remembering herself—toys with the peeling label on her beer bottle, taming her face into polite nonchalance, “As long as you aren’t too busy.”

Kara smiles, almost shy, pinching her mouth to the side and tapping a finger on the bar, “Never.”

Lena lets her hand close the miniscule gap that separates them, playing her fingertips over the long lines of Kara’s fingers, inadvertently shifting closer, the residual panic in her chest lulling quiet as Kara spares her a glance from under her lashes.

“Well,” says Lena, low, soft, “for once I don’t want to be the only one of us drinking.”

Kara brightens at this, turning her hand under Lena’s and grasping at her fingers, “Alex and her girlfriend are at their favorite bar tonight.” She fixes Lena with a look, sly and over-pleased, “I can actually drink there.” Her gaze catches like she just remembered something, fixing at a point above Lena’s head, “Not that I should.”

Lena laughs, already starting to stand, steadying her descent from the stool with Kara’s iron grip, the strength an incongruity in hands as soft as hers. “Oh I think you definitely should.”

Kara stands too, their hands still clasped between them. She doesn’t seem to notice, fishing in her pocket for her phone with her other hand, clicking the screen awake to check the time. Lena is helpless with the feel of her, overly aware of the slide of Kara’s palm against her own, the heat of Kara’s skin igniting a flush across her chest, at the high arch of her cheeks.

Kara turns to face her, wrinkling her nose, ducking in close so Lena can hear her over the chatter of the bar. She overshoots, nose at Lena’s temple, mouth tickling warm at her ear. “Do you think we can stop by my apartment,” she laughs, and the raspy sound of it bites low in Lena’s stomach, “I really need a shower.”

Lena swallows hard, shivering despite herself. She hopes her voice doesn’t betray the short circuits sparking through her body, “Yes, that’s fine.”

Kara pulls back, smiling, tugging at their joined hands to guide Lena toward the door. Lena follows, gaze catching on the tail of Kara’s dress shirt, untucked, and tries not to think about the smooth, muscled skin just barely concealed by the mussed fabric.

**

Kara holds open her apartment door, ushering Lena inside, ducking her head in a smile once Lena crosses the threshold.

“It’s been a while since you’ve been over,” Kara says, biting her bottom lip into her mouth as she fumbles her keys and phone onto the kitchen table. She averts her eyes from Lena’s, suddenly fully invested in tugging her hair free from its messy ponytail, running her hands through the tangled waves, “I’ve missed it.”

Though neither say it, though they make no reference to the memories, the room is suddenly drowning in them:

Kara’s hips crowding Lena against the sink, breath hot on her neck, hands framing her waist.

Lena splayed on the kitchen counter, Kara panting against the crux of her shoulder and neck, mouthing bruises into the skin of Lena’s throat. Reminders that had set Lena aching every time she stripped bare in front of her bathroom mirror.

Kara cleaning dishes slowly, brow furrowed in thought, turning to look her, soapsuds caught in wisps of her hair.

Kara bowed by impossible melancholy, framed in the soft light of a dying day, hands reaching for the buttons of her shirt.

Lena hasn’t been here since that night, and she can’t even remember if the sun sets like it used to.

Kara sighs sharply and the sound jars Lena from her thoughts. Lena turns toward her to speak, to ask again if she’s okay, to check in just one final time, but the words die in her throat.

Kara stands angled toward the window, hands still combing through her loose hair, glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose.

Like before, Lena can see both of them: The rigid strength in her shoulders is Supergirl, and so is the soot that mars her skin and the weary line of her brow. The way she fixes her glasses—two fingers at the junction of the frame, the soft line of her chin, the tilt of her hips, is so entirely Kara.

But then she turns toward Lena—lips curling around the start of a sentence, hands careful at her waist, her irises an impossible, gentle blue—and Lena sees neither day nor night.

Instead she just sees her. Like stars ornamenting a sun-lit sky, like an eclipse, the sun and moon caught in the same universal breathe.

She’s Kara and she’s Supergirl and she’s entirely and completely her own.

Lena sees her and she aches.

Kara moves closer, hands caught in a hover between them, always waiting for permission before she closes the gap. “Lena, did you hear me? Are you okay?”

Lena shakes her head quickly, trying to free herself from her daze. Though she hasn’t moved, though she still stands just over the threshold, she feels dazed, exhausted. She automatically leans forward into Kara’s touch, shivering as Kara’s hands catch just above her elbows, stroking careful lines from her shoulders to forearms.

Lena shakes her head again, “What?”

Kara ducks to look closer at Lena’s face, lips pulling down in concern, eyes a startling liquid blue. “I asked if it’s alright if I take my shower now?” She tilts her head, thumbs rubbing light circles at Lena’s bicep, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Lena attempts a laugh, affectionately nudging at Kara’s shoulder, “Of course, Kara.”

Kara pulls back, smiling. “Okay, good.” She tugs at her shirt, pulling a face, “I can literally smell myself right now, so I’m gonna…” she trails off, hooking her thumb at the bathroom door.

Lena smiles as Kara turns to walk toward the bathroom, watching her stumble slightly when she steals one last glance at Lena over her shoulder. Lena chokes down a laugh, feeling affection bloom warm and heady in her chest. The bathroom door clicks shut and Lena casts her eyes around the apartment, trying to distract herself from the sound of Kara moving behind the closed door, struggling to forget that Kara is about to be showering less than twenty feet away.

There is the unmistakable sound of clothes hitting the ground, and Lena hears water hiss on, steam leaking out from under the door in spiraling tendrils. Lena does her best not to picture it. She’s not picturing Kara unbuttoning her shirt and rolling the top of her jeans over her hips, she’s not picturing Kara stepping under the showerhead, gasping at the heat, and she’s especially not thinking about Kara being naked, all that lean muscle and bare soot-stained skin just a room away.

Lena feels heat rush into her stomach, her cheeks, and she grasps for her purse, desperate for any distraction. She feels downright voyeuristic, disrespectful even, and she reminds herself that Kara’s body is nobody’s but her own.

But God sometimes—

Lena grips hard at her lipstick, rescued from the side-pocket of her purse, and crosses to a small mirror Kara has mounted on the wall. Lena studies her reflection carefully, ignoring the red flush clinging to her cheeks, focusing instead on her pale bottom lip, her lipstick worn away from her teeth’s constant worrying at the bar. She uncaps the tube, redrawing her lips, pristine and sharp, in a crisp, rose-petal red. She smooths her hair back into a neat ponytail, suddenly overly concerned with looking her best, with looking desirable. Instinctively she tugs the neckline of her shirt down, sparing her cleavage a glance, feeling all too much like a high schooler with a crush—smearing on strawberry lip gloss and purchasing her first push-up bra.

She’s honestly considering re-doing her eye-liner when a harsh buzz interrupts her thoughts. Lena startles, one hand clutched to her chest, whipping around to search for the noise. It’s coming from a cellphone, vibrating noisily on the table. Lena steps closer, recognizing Alex’s picture lighting up the screen of Kara’s phone. Lena’s eyes fly wide, because she knows the polite thing to do is ignore it, but logically—knowing that Kara is Supergirl—lives could literally be hanging in the balance.

Lena makes her decision.

“Hello?”

“Um…hi?” The voice on the other end—presumably Alex’s—sounds intensely confused. “Who is this?”

Lena is immediately aware that she made the wrong choice, but it’s too late now, and she forges forward anyway. “It’s Lena.” A pause. “Luthor.” Another pause, this one longer. “Kara’s busy.”

“Oh?” Alex just sounds amused now, voice tipping dangerously close to laughter, “Is that so?”

Lena hates that she feels so nervous. She hosts international conference calls almost daily, entertaining and charming the top names in the tech world without breaking a sweat, but having Kara’s big sister on the other end of the line is setting her squirming.

“Yes?” Lena finally manages, voice hinging embarrassingly close to uncertainty, “is everything alright?”

Alex laughs, and Lena thinks she hears her say something to someone else at her side of the call, then: “Can I talk to her actually?”

Lena physically startles away from the receiver, “I’m sorry”

“Kara. Can I talk to her?”

“I—” Lena stutters, “I suppose?” Then, more firmly, “I’ll get her, just a minute.”

She lowers the phone to clench it in her palm, starting toward the bathroom door slowly, ignoring the pulse thudding hard in her chest. When she gets outside the door, all Lena can hear is the harsh fall of water, and she can feel the thick heat pressing at the other side of the doorway. She raises her fist and raps lightly, cooling her voice into something she hopes sounds composed and calm.

“Kara?” She waits a beat with no answer and knocks again, harder this time. “Kara? It’s me.”

There’s another thick pause before she hears Kara shout over the water, “You can just come in.”

Lena straightens, trying the door handle and finding it unlocked. The heavy pulse has sunk to her stomach now, warm and throbbing and unquenchable. She pushes in the door slowly, stepping into the stifling heat of the small room. Though she swore she wouldn’t look, her eyes are drawn to the thin shower curtain, to the rolling steam curling at the top, to the shape behind the near-opaque plastic.

She can’t really see anything, just the shape of her, long, lithe, the darker shadow of her hair, the curve of her hips. Lena wrenches her gaze away with an almost audible gasp, training her eyes on the mirror instead, the glass fogged up with frosted condensation. She traces a finger through the beaded water absently, a bid for distraction, drawing swirls and lines across the surface.

There’s a sound of the curtain just slightly drawing back, and out of the corner of her eyes Lena can see Kara peeking at her from around the plastic, face flush with warmth, dripping water from the wet fall of her hair. “What’s up?”

“Um,” Lena half stutters, fingers still raised to the mirror, “Your sister called?” She holds up the phone with her other hand, gaze trained determinedly forward, “She says she needs to talk to you.”

“Oh!” Kara says brightly, she reaches out around the curtain, and Lena can’t help but look at the long stretch of her arm, skin slick with water and humidity. She fumbles the phone into Kara’s hand, her fingers coming away wet where they touch.

Kara laughs. “Sorry.”

Lena feels the throb drop lower. “Alright, well, now that’s done, I’m—” She’s out the door before she can finish the sentence, feeling foolish and flustered and completely unaware that she spent the last twenty seconds drawing looping hearts all over the bathroom mirror.

**

When Kara comes out of the bathroom, Lena is perched on the edge of the couch, fingers twisted in her lap. She looks up as Kara enters the room, hands immediately shooting up to cover her eyes, mouth snapping shut. There’s that feeling—like she’s a teen again, stumbling her way through a newfound attraction for women, swallowing heat every time a pretty girl looks at her.

Kara is standing caught in the doorway in her towel, hair dripping down her back, hands holding the pinched edge of the terrycloth above her breasts.

“Kara,” Lena says, trying to keep her voice controlled, “Is there any reason you aren’t wearing clothes right now?”

There is a beat of silence before Kara sighs out a small laugh, bare feet padding soft toward her.

“I left my change of clothes in my bedroom.” Lena can hear the smile still caught in her voice, humor curling her words high.

Lena slowly drops her hands from her face, blinking her eyes open to find Kara standing closer than before. Though a wide breadth of space still separates them, they are near enough that the air feels molten. Heat clings high in Lena’s cheeks, and she bites hard at her bottom lip, soothing the sting with her tongue as she focuses on Kara’s face.

She struggles to keep her gaze there, trained on the pink shower-heated flush of Kara’s skin, ignoring the expanse of leg that stretches from underneath the damp cling of the towel. Kara shifts from one foot to the other, calf muscles flexing dagger-sharp as she fidgets, forearms tensing as she tightens her hold at her chest. Kara opens her mouth, wetting her lips before she closes her mouth again, words caught high in her throat.

“What?” Lena hushes, biting back the longing that seeps, viscous and palpable, from every throb of her chest.

Kara swallows hard, and Lena can see the movement in her throat. She notices water droplets clinging at the slope of Kara’s collarbones and immediately wrenches her gaze back to Kara’s eyes.

“The truth?” Kara says quietly, words dropped low, pulling rough in her throat.

Lena shakes her head, brow creasing. “Always, Kara.”

Kara exhales slowly, bare shoulders heaving with the movement. “When you look at me like that,” she says, tilting her head as her eyes pin Lena hard against the couch, “I want to kiss you.”

“Oh,” Lena says, the noise involuntary, more a sigh than anything, ripped free from her chest. “I—”

Kara doesn’t let her finish, just steps abruptly forward to dodge around the couch, scooting quickly for her room. “I’m sorry,” she calls over her shoulder, already covering her words with a forced laugh. “I’m just—” She breaks off quickly and Lena hears a soft thud that sounds suspiciously like Kara running into the doorjamb. A scuffle, a brief lull, and then—“I’ll be ready to go in a minute!”

Lena sinks into the couch and massages hard at her temple. She closes her eyes, letting her head fall back with a thud, listening to the muted shuffle of Kara in her room.

She doesn’t picture Kara buttoning a skin-tight collared shirt over the hard line of her stomach, doesn’t picture her shimmying into a pair of slacks or a hip hugging skirt—hem rolled to the sharp angle of her hip bones. She certainly doesn’t picture the water droplets that still cling to the hollow of Kara’s throat, to the round of her breasts.

Lena closes her eyes and thinks of nothing at all.

When she opens them, moonlight drips through the parted window, flooding the room in currents of silver light. It bathes Kara as she steps out of her room and into Lena’s peripheral. A red dress clings tight against her hips, baring the broad set of her shoulders and hard line of her arms. The hemline dips low, blood red fabric a stark contrast to the pale swell of her cleavage.

It’s not a cape, but its close enough.

Kara steps toward her, holding out her hand to Lena, still sitting star-struck on the couch. “Ready to go?”

Lena nods wordlessly and Kara leans down, taking Lena’s hand in her own, palms pressed close, and pulls her to her feet. Lena stumbles—hindered by three-inch heels and the constraint of her skirt—and Kara catches her easily, two hands at her waist, holding her steady against the solid warmth of her chest.

“I’ve got you,” Kara whispers, eyes catching deep and dark and certain on Lena’s own.

Awash in moonlight, Lena drowns.

*

When they get to the bar, Alex is already there. She’s leaning low across the pool table, one eye squinted shut as she lines up her shot. The girlfriend—Maggie—is positioned behind her, a hand at the small of her back. The motion is intimate, and her eyes are a deep liquid soft as she looks at Alex, but Kara and Lena can still hear her trash talking from across the room.

“C’mon, Danvers,” Maggie teases, jostling Alex with her hips to throw her off balance, “Just give in to the inevitable.”

Alex turns her head to glare, momentarily distracted from her show-down with the eight ball. “Dream on, Sawyer.”

Maggie shrugs, lips tilting into a self-satisfied smirk. “Just face it, You’re gonna miss this shot, and then I’m going to get to—” her voice drops off and she leans down, finishing her sentence close to Alex’s ear, too quiet for Lena to hear.

Lena furrows her brow, watching Alex’s face flush an impossible red, her teeth biting down hard at the plush of her bottom lip. Lena turns to Kara to comment, only to find Kara’s face is red too, her blush staining the tips of her ears. Kara turns to Lena and shakes her head quickly.

“Sometimes super hearing sucks,” she mumbles, tugging at Lena’s hand before she can comment, “Let’s let them know we’re here before I am completely traumatized.”

Lena laughs, folding her hand in Kara’s own, thrilling at the warm press of Kara’s fingers. She lets Kara lead them through the dimly lit bar, winding around high-topped tables and watery pools of fluorescence. The décor is rustic and dingy, roughhewn walls and sticky floors completing the careless motif.

They are almost across the room before Lena notices the occupants themselves. A blue skinned Aloi slumped over a pint of a purple liquid, the jagged ridges of his forehead buried in his hand as he mutters to the figure next to him—another humanoid, this one with a third eye blinking lazily at the crown of his skull.

Once Lena remembers to look, she sees the entire room is a mix of aliens and humans. Or—she realizes—perhaps just more aliens who can pass as human, who have adapted habits or camouflage to blend in with this world, to survive in a society built against them.

As she stares, one man turns to look at her, normal except for sharply filed teeth, bared in a snarl between parted lips. She winces away despite herself, feeling a keen jolt of fear stab below her ribs. Kara makes a small noise of surprise at Lena’s shock, catching Lena in her arms, pulling her close against her chest. Lena’s fear immediately quiets at Kara’s touch, and she is overwhelmed with guilt instead.

Sometime Lena thinks a lifetime with the Luthor name has poisoned her, that their hatred runs through her veins, thick as blood. For the first time, she thinks she is truly beginning to understand why Kara didn’t tell her, why she lied for so long.

She feels shame catch acid sharp in her throat, and she nearly turns to leave.

It’s Kara who stops her, arms tightening around Lena’s chest, ducking her head until her lips press against her cheek. She mouths a kiss against Lena’s skin, stroking her thumb over the thrill of Lena’s heartbeat.

“You’re okay,” she murmurs, another stroke, waiting for the beats to slow, “I’ve got you.”

Lena turns her face into Kara’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she says, “I didn’t mean to be—”

Kara hums softly, pressing her hand flat against Lena’s chest now, her pulse throbbing against her palm. “No one expects you to be completely used to us yet, Lena.” She starts to loosen her grip, “What matters is that you’re trying.”

Lena exhales slowly, feeling the last tendrils of fear dissipate, heartbeat finally leveling. She swallows hard, looking at the floor, unable to meet Kara’s eyes. “Sometimes I worry that—” She trails off, words tripping hard over her tongue, “What if I—” She swallows again, raising her hands in front of her chest, palm up, a plea. She starts again: “I can’t be like him.”

Kara catches at her wrists, pulling her closer, only relinquishing her grasp to nudge a finger under Lena’s chin, coaxing her eyes back up.

“You’re nothing like him,” Kara says slowly, enunciating every syllable clearly, nodding into her words. “You’re good, Lena Luthor.” Kara smiles, this soft, quiet thing, nudging her forehead against Lena’s own reverently, “I couldn’t feel like this about you if you weren’t.”

Lena feels a catch in her chest, something deep unhinged, raw and wild and wanting. Her heart flutters wildly, and Lena is breathless with the weight of this. She feels heady and dazzled, tilting her chin up to meet Kara’s gaze.

She wonders if this is what it feels to be loved.

Kara catches Lena’s face in her hands, stroking at her cheekbones, brow creased again with worry. She tilts her head as though she is listening, mouth pursed curiously.

“Are you okay?” Kara asks, concern coloring her voice low. “Your heart is going really fast again.”

Lena’s mouth falls open, embarrassment lancing through her chest, and she bats away Kara’s hands. “Stop spying,” she hisses, taking a step back and covering her chest as though that will quiet the sound. “I’m just—”

Kara’s face lights in a slow grin, realization dawning across her face. “Oh!” she says, then lower, biting at her lip, over-pleased, “you like me.”

Lena rolls her eyes, shoving at Kara’s shoulder, annoyed when she doesn’t even pretend it affects her. “Can we just get you drunk now?”

Kara shrugs, still grinning, “Anything for you, Ms. Luthor.”

She ignores Lena’s glare in favor of grabbing at her hand, steering her toward her sister, Lena’s heart still beating wildly in the space between them.

**

Kara is halfway through a low crystalline tumbler of amber liquid. She lists sideways, smiling at Lena over the rim when she manages to catch her eye. Alex watches with amusement as Kara takes another drink, pulling a face after every sip, wrinkling her nose exaggeratedly.

“Pacing yourself, Kara?”

Kara just glares, ducking away from Alex’s outstretched hand. Lena watches them silently, feeling that familiar ache of longing at the easy way they move, at the grin that pulls insistent at Kara’s lips despite herself as Alex teases her relentlessly.

Maggie stands at Lena’s shoulder, watching them fondly, propped against the corner of the pool table.

“They’re ridiculous,” Maggie says, but Lena can hear the grin in her voice, can see the affection in the relaxed tilt of her hips.

Alex and Kara are jostling each other in earnest now, and Lena watches Kara’s drink slosh dangerously in her glass as she combats Alex with a mewl of protest and an open palmed shove. Her face is flushed, points of red burning high in her cheeks, and when she catches Lena’s eye she smiles, sloppy and over-wide.

Lena feels a tug hard in her chest, captivated by the girl before her. Kara attempts a wink—an over-exaggerated blink with both eyes—and Lena muffles her laugh into her palm. Alex seems ready to take advantage of Kara’s newfound distraction, but Maggie stops her with a hand at her waist and a hard tug at her belt-loop.

Alex feigns resistance, but Lena can see how quickly she caves, falling into Maggie easily, one hand buried in her dark hair.

It’s disconcerting to see her like this. Lena has watched Alex toss a full grown man over her shoulder, her heel grinding his throat into the pavement. Alex is hard edges and a granite jawline, tempered steel and gunpowder, but Lena watches as she ducks in close to press her smile against Maggie’s lips, hand sifting carefully through her curls.

Kara watches them distantly, mouth tilted up at the corners, swirling her drink absently. Her cheeks are flushed dark, blush clinging at the smooth column of her throat, the high jut of her collarbones. Lena watches as Kara shifts restlessly, taught muscles shifting in her forearms, tension flexing in the sharp cut of her biceps.

Lena doesn’t realize how openly she has been staring until Kara catches her, eyes fixing dark and curious on Lena’s own. Lena bites down instinctively on her lip, feeling caught, insatiable and hopelessly flustered. Kara watches the movement, the alcohol making her cloudy and obvious, hesitating only a moment before she closes the distance between them.

Kara presses close and Lena lets her, arm slipping around Kara’s waist, tilting her forehead against Kara’s temple.

“Everything alright, Kara?” Lena asks, soft and curious, enthralled by the warmth that radiates off Kara in waves.

If Alex is tactic and cold anger, all jagged edges and bite, then Kara is power and heat. Lena has seen the wildfire that licks molten through Kara’s bones, the fury and grief that wars beneath her skin. When Kara smiles, brilliant and sharp and pure, it’s easy to forget that her eyes have seen the destruction of worlds.

Lena doesn’t know how she bears it, how Kara shoulders the burden of a civilization lost. Lena pulls Kara closer, coaxing her to lean her weight against her side, and thinks she can help Kara carry it, just for a little while.

“I’m good,” Kara says, sighing softly as she settles tighter in Lena’s hold, “I feel very nice.” Her expression sharpens, and she looks at Lena with an easy wonder. “You feel very nice.” She turns her face to press a kiss at the bridge of Lena’s nose, “You smell good.”

Lena laughs, wrinkling her nose at the tickle of Kara’s lips against her skin. “Do I?”

Kara nods eagerly, nuzzling soft at Lena’s hairline, humming her agreement against her skin.

Lena pinches at her side playfully, and Kara watches the motion curiously before catching at her hand, smoothing her thumb against Lena’s palm. Lena looks up to find Alex watching them sharply from underneath the mussed slant of her bangs. She quirks an eyebrow when she meets Lena’s gaze, and Lena stiffens, preparing for a barrage of admonishment and venom.

Instead, Alex pulls away from Maggie, their hands still caught between them, and reaches for Lena, fingers circling her wrist.

“Do you play pool?”

**

Lena bends low over the table, the tip of the cue resting in the groove between her thumb and forefinger, her right hand wrapped at the stock. She hums lowly, squinting one eye to align the shot, unconsciously moving into the hips that press close at her back.

An arm wraps around her shoulder, adjusting Lena’s grip, hips jostling her more firmly against the table.

“You should take it, Luthor,” the voice says in her ear, “Now that I’ve showed you how it’s done.”

Lena scoffs, readjusts, and takes the shot. The cue ball hits her solid square, sending it spinning into the far left pocket. Lena straightens with a smirk, turning into the woman who has settled behind her.

“It’s simple geometry, Detective. I am well equipped to handle this on my own.”

Maggie grins. She’s close enough that Lena can’t help but fixate on the deep dimple in her cheek, the smell of her perfume. Maggie shrugs, absently brushing a strand of dark hair out of Lena’s eyes.

“Worth a shot.”

Lena laughs, sparing a glance to Alex and Kara who are grousing off to the side, propped against a high bar table, nursing matching beers. Alex is gripping so tight to her pool stick that—even without the signature Danver’s super strength—the wood threatens to splinter. Kara, well past tipsy now, leans disheveled and flushed against Alex’s side, teeth worrying at her bottom lip.

Lena tilts her mouth at Maggie’s ear. “Do you make a habit of teasing people who can kill you?”

Maggie winks. “Only when they make it so fun.” She reaches out to pinch at Lena’s hip, disguising it as a caress, watching Alex narrow her eyes, knuckles whitening. “You should go rescue little Danvers,” she says, stepping away, “I’m gonna handle my girlfriend.”

Lena rests her pool stick against the table, taking a long draw from her drink before she makes her way toward Kara. She smiles, endeared, as Kara attempts to look busy upon her return, fumbling with a damp coaster on the table and nearly upending a line of empty bottles.

Lena nudges her with her shoulder, leaning beside her. “Having fun?”

Kara turns to her, eyes drawn wide, nodding exaggeratedly. “So much fun.” She draws the first word long, nodding into the syllables.

Lena laughs, unable to stop herself from resting her hand on Kara’s at the table, quieting her fidgeting, petting soft at her fingers. “Good.” She looks at Kara more directly, noticing the blush that paints her cheeks and neck in swathes of pink, the sweat that beads at her temple. Lena frowns, pressing her palm against Kara’s forehead. “God, Kara, you’re burning up.”

Kara sways, trying for a grin. “No you are.”

Lena rolls her eyes, lacing their fingers and tugging her away from the table. “Let’s get you some air.” She pries Kara’s fingers from her beer, grateful that she doesn’t resist, discarding the bottle with the other glasses.

Kara pouts, two vertical creases carved at her brow. “But what about Maggie and Alex?”

Lena looks around the bar and finds them pressed close in the back corner, Alex’s teeth at Maggie’s neck, hands snaking up the back of her jacket. She laughs. “I think they’ll be alright.”

Kara noticeably calms as soon as they push out into the cool night air, tilting her head to the sky, exhaling in a long, slow stream. She hums quietly, rolling her shoulders, streetlamps lighting her skin in burnished gold, playing at the strong line of her nose, dousing the curve of her chin in shadow.

Lena leans against the rough brick exterior of the bar, coaxing Kara to join her. “How are you feeling?”

Kara shrugs. “Better now that I’m with you.”

There are no stars tonight, the sky choked with smog, but Kara studies the vaulting horizon as though the constellations are spread before them anyway.

“Would you like to hear another story?” Kara asks, soft, and when Lena turns to face her she is closer than before, her breath ghosting warm over Lena’s lips, her eyes blinking wide, dark pupils swallowing the iris.

Lena gestures at the sky, helpless. “Whose story?”

“Ours.”

The night shatters, washing them in silver, the flare of passing headlights jolting Lena from her daze. She jars back, makes a small noise of disquiet and Kara catches at her waist, painting soothing circles at her hipbones. Lena lets her, her eyes fluttering closed, her breath shaky, stuttered.

“Do you know what you do to me?” she asks, the words all a rush. She doesn’t mean to say it, it’s too much, too soon, but when she opens her eyes, Kara is smiling.

She tugs at Lena’s waist, pulling them tight against the wall, the shadowed eve sheltering them from curious eyes. Lena swallows hard, gripping at Kara’s forearms, fingers dimpling the skin.

If she was any less human it would bruise.

Kara tucks into her, loose, pliant, her mouth curling into a smile against Lena’s neck. Lena shivers at the light brush of lips, her body turned molten at the faintest pressure. Kara’s breath is warm, humid, and Lena absently tips further into the press of her mouth, moves until Kara’s nose and lips crush against her neck.

It isn’t a kiss, not quite, but Lena gasps anyway, tilting her head back, eyes finding the slate-gray sky.

Kara murmurs something low against her skin, the words jumbled and unfamiliar, and Lena strains to understand. Her voice sounds smooth, accented, her syllables slick against Lena’s throat, and it takes her a moment to realize Kara isn’t speaking English at all.

Lena strokes down Kara’s arms, finds her hand and smooths over her knuckles, guides her palms higher on her waist.

“Kara,” she says, reticent, small, and Kara comes willingly, pulling back until they are face to face, her skin flushed, eyes wide.

She wants to press herself into Kara, chest to chest, hip to hip, fold herself into the lithe, lean of her until she can’t remember anything but the wet, hot of Kara’s mouth.

She wants Kara to kiss her until she bruises, her tongue at her neck, her fingers searing bright against the shallow curve of her ribs.

She wants Shakespearian declarations carved from revered prose, wants star-crossed revelations to fall from Kara’s bowed lips.

Instead.

“I should get you home,” Lena says. She shrugs free of Kara’s grasp carefully, smoothing her palms over her rumpled blouse, turning away before she can see the disappointment dim Kara’s smile.

Kara says nothing, just nods, pinching her mouth to the side, studying Lena’s face carefully. There is still a messy lilt to her, her eyes glossy, but she seems to have somewhat sobered, her metabolism and the cool air tugging her back to center.

“I should get my purse,” Kara says, quiet, jerking her thumb at the bar door, “and say bye to Alex and Maggie. Wait here?”

Lena nods, swallowing hard, feeling regret and guilt weigh heavy in her gut, cold lead settling in the pit of her stomach.

Kara disappears through the entrance taking the night’s calm with her. Lena doesn’t even have time to call them a driver before a siren splits the air, wailing harsh across the city, blue lights careening through the distant downtown.

Lena exhales shakily, her head falling back against the wall. She knows what this means.

The bar door slams open and Supergirl is silhouetted against the dim interior. Her cape drapes crimson across broad shoulders and her mouth presses into a tight line, expression hard, chin tilted high. When she turns to face Lena her face briefly softens, shoulders curling inward as she absently reaches a hand toward Lena’s cheek, dropping it back to her side before they touch.

“I think—”

Lena cuts her off before she can finish. “Of course, Supergirl. Go, I’ll be fine.”

Kara smiles, raising one hand to the sky and tossing Lena a wink. She crouches and pushes off the stoop before spiraling into the air in an electric crackle of energy. Lena feels her stomach lurch, her heart stuttering high in her chest as she arches her neck to find Kara, a blur of blue and red fragmented against the smog-heavy sky.

And oh God. She can’t breathe for wanting her.

“Wait,” she calls, the words tearing free from her throat, unbound. She knows what it sounds like: broken and hoarse, wanting, and she watches Supergirl falter once in the air before curling back toward her, flying toward the ground until they are just an arms breadth away, her mouth twisting around the start of a question .

Lena doesn’t wait for her to touch down, doesn’t give her time to speak, just arches onto her tiptoes and wraps her arms around Kara’s neck, dragging her into a kiss. Kara makes a small noise of surprise, her eyes flaring wide, before she kisses back, her hands settling at the slim taper of Lena’s waist, lashes fluttering against her cheek.

Lena feels her chest ache and expand, the hungry bite of Kara’s mouth melting between her ribs, her breast, her bones, filling her with a liquid heat and reckless abandon that throbs low in her stomach.

Just before midnight on a Friday night, in the weed entrenched back lot of an Alien bar, Lena Luthor kisses Kara Danvers until she remembers how to breathe.

Lena has to pull away first, unwinding her arms from Kara’s neck and rocking back onto solid ground. Kara’s lips stay parted, her eyes a half-lidded daze, still hovering horizontal off of the asphalt, their faces even.

The sirens are still keening, the sound blurring into the choking city cacophony, and Lena and Kara seem to remember the impending emergency all at once. Kara’s face flushes and when she tries to speak her words are a jumbled stutter.

Lena looks at her feet, suddenly bashful, and laughs low, rubbing at the back of her neck. “Supergirl,” she says, tilting her chin back up to meet Kara’s eyes, a smile curling at red, kiss bruised lips, “Don’t you have a world to save?”

Kara’s answer is to press in for one more fleeting kiss before she grins, bolting back into the night, rocketing along the skyline before hurtling downtown.

Lena tilts her head back and briefly, though the night is hazy with light and mist, she swears she can see the stars.

**
Lena flicks on her bedroom light and rubs hard over her eyes, yawning into her fist. Despite the quiet, shadow-hazy cab ride home, she is still punch drunk from the kiss. She feels the imprint of it against the curve of her bottom lip, remembers the wet hint of Kara’s tongue, and shivers.

She kicks off her heels, padding barefoot across the cool hardwood floor to click on the TV mounted in the corner of her bedroom, tossing the remote into the pillowed plush of her comforter. She sheds her skirt and blouse easily, sighing in relief as she unclasps her bra, slipping a well-worn cotton tee over her head.

She rubs her thumb at the jut of her hipbone carefully, remembering the press of Kara’s hands at her waist, the static-shock of the memory lighting in her chest. She feels doubts press tight at her peripheral and bullies them away, letting the alcohol-sated slur of Kara against her neck be the only thing that weighs heavy on her mind.

Erebus curls at the corner of the doorframe and looks at her before slinking off. Lena glares after him, eyes catching at the muted TV in the process.

For the second time that night, she finds Supergirl on the screen.

She is standing in front of a cordoned off crime scene, yellow tape and uniformed officers crisscrossing in the background of the shot. The reporter next to her, coiffed and blazered, holds a handheld mic to her lips.

“I’m here on the corner of Broad and Harrison with National City’s caped hero who just wrapped up her third arrest of the night,” the woman says, eyeing the camera before turning to Kara. “Care to comment, Supergirl?”

Lena hurriedly turns up the volume, moving closer to the screen to get a better look at Kara. She is red-cheeked and wind-flushed, her hair a messy curtain of waves that curls around her shoulders. She props her hands on her hips, and Lena can’t help but notice the way her uniform stretches taught across her chest.

“Well,” Kara says, she’s grinning now, this toothy, beaming thing, “It’s been a good night.” She rocks on the balls of her feet, laughing a little. “A really, really good night.”

The reporter laughs too, turning back to camera. “You heard it here first, National City: Supergirl is having a good night.”

Lena can’t help but laugh as well, sinking back on her bed as the reporter signs off and Supergirl gives the camera a little wave and takes off into the sky, soaring out of frame.

Lena curls under her covers, nestling into the mattress, switching off the bedside light as an afterthought. Though her apartment rings cavernous around her, though she sleeps alone, her bed doesn’t feel as empty as it used to.

**

Lena leans against the lip of her kitchen island, a bowl of cereal sitting untouched at her elbow. She scrolls absently through her work email as the sun wavers unsteadily at the horizon, washing her reclaimed hardwood floors in soft gold, dust motes caught in the fragile columns of light.

She tries her best to think about anything but last night, of anything but Kara Danvers hovering above her, looking wind-swept and strong and eager, framed by that swallowing ache of empty sky.

The expo is quickly approaching and Jess has filled her inbox with a series of emails detailing trivial last minute decisions, from tablecloth hues to the fonts on the press passes. Lena massages her fingers at her temple, nudging her glasses further up the bridge of her nose.

If Lena has to field one more email from S.T.A.R. Labs she is going to scream.

Her phone dings three times in quick succession and she reaches for it absently, unlocking the screen with one hand, the other still hovering over the trackpad on her laptop. Lena glances at the phone out of the corner of her eye. She expects it to be Jess, or Natalie from the board, she doesn’t expect—

Kara (6:32) lunch?

Kara (6:32) today specifically

Kara (6:32) only if you want obviously

Lena stifles a laugh, smiling into her palm, ignoring the flutter that lights high in her chest. She taps out a quick reply, swallowing hard before she hits send. She briefly considers adding an emoji but figures that would mean venturing too far into uncharted territory.

Lena (6:33) is this a date Kara Danvers?

She watches the ellipses emerge on screen and holds her breath despite herself.

Kara (6:34) do you want it to be?

Lena pauses, fingers hovering over the keypad, chest suddenly tight, head thrumming, cloudy and wanting. She knows the safe answer, knows what she should say. She should laugh it off, treat it like a joke, sit a safe distance from Kara on her office couch over an early lunch, bite back her kisses and keep her hands politely in her own lap.

Lena should keep things dependable and platonic. Should stop fantasizing about Kara splayed kiss-bruised and wet beneath her, her hands stroking up the inside of Lena’s thighs.

Lena exhales sharply, dropping her phone to the island, sliding her glasses up her forehead to press her palms hard against her eyes.

She is standing at a precipice, teetering high above the expanse of this barren cityscape, and the fall is so terribly far.

**

Lena (7:02) yes

**

Kara knocks lightly on the doorframe, poking her head around the corner, grinning wide when Lena looks up from her desk. She holds up a takeout bag triumphantly, stepping over the threshold.

“Your lunch, Ms. Luthor.”

Lena snaps the lid of her laptop shut and narrows her eyes at Kara’s over-wide smile.

“I see you finally remembered how to use the door.”

Kara pouts, risking another step toward Lena, dropping the food at the low table by the couch. “I thought you liked my dramatic entrances.”

Lena stands, walking slowly around her desk, hand trailing across the glossy, lacquer surface. She watches Kara’s eyes catch on her fingers, lingering on Lena’s slow strides, and she smirks, pleased.

Kara hesitates in the middle of the office, hands tucked carefully into her pockets, chin ducked low. When their eyes meet Kara pulls her lips into her mouth, dark lashes rimming wide blue irises, pupils dilating as Lena holds her gaze.

Though the weather outside is cold, frost distorting the thick, paned glass, the sky is a steady, thoughtless blue. Sunlight fractures through the frost-bitten windows, catching at the tendrils of hair that escapes Kara’s ponytail, trailing high on her cheekbones and glinting off the lens of her glasses.

Lena feels her breath catch, Kara’s summer-bright shine lighting at Lena’s fingertips, unfurling in her stomach, ardent and warm.

(But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? / It is the east, and Juliet is the sun)

Lena takes a small step toward her, closing the gap between them, reaching out carefully to curl her fingers in Kara’s sleeve.

“I like you best like this,” Lena says, her voice dropping to a whisper, thumb tracing over the pale veins visible at the juncture of Kara’s wrist, fragile and thin and entirely too human.

Kara exhales unsteadily, moving a hand to cup at Lena’s chin, tilting it up until their breath mingles warm between them.

“Lena,” says Kara, her voice small, breakable, “can I kiss you?”

Lena hums lowly, eyes dropping to fixate on the plush bow of Kara’s lips. “I don’t usually kiss on a first date, but—”

Kara’s mouth swallows the end of her sentence, kissing her light, careful, until Lena presses back hard, catching Kara’s bottom lip between her teeth. The kiss pulses warm in her chest, dripping molten to her stomach, between her legs, buckling her knees until Kara catches at her waist, pulling her tight against her.

Lena’s hands cup Kara’s jaw, dropping to frame her throat before scrabbling weakly at her chest, tangling in her collar. Below the thin fabric of Kara’s dress shirt Lena can feel the tight-fitted tension of her spandex uniform. Panic spikes reflexively at her temples but then Kara licks wetly into her mouth, sighing low in her throat, and Lena can’t find it in herself to care.

Kara trails her mouth from Lena’s lips to her chin, nipping a bite at the strong line of Lena’s jaw before sucking hard over her pulse, laving the flat of her tongue at Lena’s neck. Lena tightens her grip on Kara’s shirt, arching her neck back, gasping into the near-empty room. Kara jars back at the noise, eyes wide, lips parted.

“Are you okay?”

Lena laughs, dropping her forehead to Kara’s chest, nosing into the starched fabric, inhaling the smell of her detergent, the floral musk of her perfume. She can’t think straight, words jumbled and riled in her head, so she just nods her head against Kara instead.

Kara pulls back slightly, waiting for Lena to meet her eyes. “Are you hungry?”

Lena smirks, pushing in close again, pressing a kiss to the slope of Kara’s collarbone. “I think I liked what we were doing.”

Kara pulls away again, obviously distressed. “Lena, you need to eat.” Lena starts to protest but Kara catches at her hand before she can, fitting their palms close, intertwining their fingers and tugging her toward the couch. “It’s a lunch date, Lena.” Kara says, and Lena doesn’t miss the blush that colors her cheekbones at the word date. “We have to do this right.”

Lena settles at her side on the cushions, helplessly endeared despite herself, watching Kara unwrap the takeout containers one-handed, the other still hooked between them.

“I got your favorite,” Kara says, peeking at Lena out of the corner of her eye, she nudges the container toward her, “I know how hard you’ve been working on the expo.”

Lena smiles, inching closer until their shoulders brush, a little disbelieving that today has found them here: pressed close on her office couch, her pulse still racing at the memory of Kara’s hands curled fast at her waist.

Lena realizes with a thrill that she can kiss Kara right now if she wants to, she doesn’t need an excuse.

She turns her head and brushes a kiss at the faint jut of Kara’s cheekbone, nosing against her cheek until Kara turns to meet her, catching her mouth in another kiss. Lena grins against her mouth, hooking her fingers in Kara’s belt loops and urging her closer.

“Y’know,” Kara manages, words fit between the smacks and pop of their lips, “I really should—” she cuts off as Lena nips hard at her bottom lip, whimpering when she soothes the bite with her tongue. Kara tries again, breathless. “I really should get some quotes about the expo.”

“Mhm,” Lena hums, only half-hearing her, running her tongue against the seam of Kara’s lips, pressing her tongue against Kara’s own when she opens her mouth.

The conversation quickly dissolves, food forgotten, and Kara pulls Lena into her lap, gasping wetly in her ear when Lena directs her attention to her neck, dragging her lips at the slope of her throat, nipping a kiss at the straining tendons in Kara’s neck.

Kara says something, jumbled, words caught between English and something else, and the slurred syllables give Lena pause.

“Kara?” she says, pulling back.

Kara answers with a low hum, fingers splayed wide just below the hem of Lena’s skirt, easily palming the curve of Lena’s thighs.
Lena pinches light at her hip to get Kara’s attention and Kara blinks her eyes open slow. Though Lena knows to expect it, the wild blue of her eyes still startles her, stilling her tongue, leaving her as breathless as a punch to the stomach.

Lena shakes her head quickly, directing her gaze at a point above Kara’s head, trying to regain some semblance of rational thought.

“The other night, at the bar, you said something to me, and then again now. Was that—”

“Oh,” Kara says. She looks down, her face suddenly solemn, quiet. “Kryptonian, yeah.” She ducks her head. “Does it bother you?”

Lena frowns, stroking soft at Kara’s cheek until she meets her eyes. “Of course not, Kara.” She shrugs, suddenly bashful, “I feel honored that you would share that part of yourself with me.”

Kara smiles slowly, her mouth turning up at the corners. “Yeah?”

Lena smiles back. “Yeah.”

Kara strokes her thumbs lightly over the satin-soft of Lena’s thighs, watching as she shivers. “We should really eat,” she says, lowly, “Snapper will expect me back soon.”

Lena agrees, swallowing hard. “We really should. I have a meeting with investors in an hour.”

Kara nods in understanding. Lena nods in return.

Neither of them move.

**

Later that day, after Lena attends three meetings and one international skype call, Jess pulls her aside, her face flared red, and points out the line of bruises that mar the skin of Lena’s neck from her pulse point to the dip of her collarbones.

Lena locks herself in her private bathroom with her compact, leans back against the door, and laughs so hard she almost cries.

**

Lena (4:34) you are going to be the end of my professional career

Kara (4:47) i bet you say that to all the girls

**

Now that Lena has tasted freedom it’s hard to curb her appetite.

Lunch dates often dissolve into thirty minutes stolen on Lena’s office couch, pressed close and golden and aching.

Supergirl finds her late at night on her office balcony, kissing her messy and deep before spiraling back into the night at a siren’s bidding.

They make dinner in Kara’s kitchen, Kara feeding her bites in between questions about her day, lifting Lena on the counter so she can stand between her legs and suck kisses against her neck, just because.

Afterwards, Kara flies them to the roof of her building and they sit propped at the edge. Lena traces the strong line of Kara’s arm and picks constellations out of the inky vaulted sky.

Kara tells her stories in exchange for kisses and Lena thinks she will never tire of this.

**

Lena knows something is wrong before she even lands.

She’s flying funny, lopsided, her arm tucked awkwardly to her chest. Lena twists in her desk chair, watching Kara land unsteadily on the balcony, her hand grappling for the railing, the metal bowing in her grip. Her face is lit by harsh moonlight as she limps across the balcony, shouldering heavily through the unlocked door.

Lena is already halfway out of her chair, a series of panicked questions ready on her tongue, but she freezes when her eyes find Kara’s face.

Her teeth are gritted tight, her jaw muscles tense, rippling under unusually pallid skin. There’s a thin sheen of sweat at her brow, glistening on her throat, her chest, and she holds her wrist close against her body.

Holes riddle the bullet-proof fabric of her uniform, soot slashing her bare palms and cheeks. Lena even notices the quickly fading remnants of a gash curling around Supergirl—Kara’s—upper arm.

Blood smears at the harsh hinge of Kara’s jaw, at the whorls and pads of Kara’s fingertips, at the ridges of her knuckles, and oh God Lena realizes it isn’t her own.

Lena feels hysteria rise in her throat and she chokes it down, hurriedly closing the distance between them, uprooting her office chair in her rush. The clatter would usually bring Jess into the office, but Lena let everyone leave hours ago, too concerned with last minute expo details to head home herself.

“Kara,” she whispers, voice pitched high with worry, “What happened?”

Kara doesn’t respond, just looks at her, pinning her in place with a fierce, feral glare, her brow hard, lips set in a grim line. Lena instinctively reaches to touch her, strokes carefully over the insignia on her chest, and Kara’s face softens slowly, the tension easing from her jaw.

She catches Lena’s hand in her own, wordless, and brings it to her mouth, pressing a long kiss to Lena’s fingers.

Lena feels the faint, wet hint of her tongue and swallows hard, lust adding itself to the cocktail of adrenaline and confusion that pounds heavy in her chest.

“Are you hurt?”

Kara—Supergirl—rolls her shoulder thoughtfully, and Lena is suddenly reminded of that first night in her office, before stargazing and mistaken identities and too many almost-kisses to count.

“I’ll heal,” Kara says, grating and low, and Lena absently notes it is the first words she has heard Kara say all night.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Lena asks again, slower this time, her hand still caught in Kara’s grasp.

Kara shakes her head, eyes hooded and dark, and moves closer. “I’d really rather not talk right now, if that’s alright.”

She sets her hands at Lena’s waist, backing them up until Lena’s hips hit the desk, fingers digging into Lena’s skin. She ducks close then seems to think better of it, stops, and takes a step back. She hooks her hands behind her back, tilts her head.

“Can I kiss you now?”

Lena nods hurriedly, dazed and all-too willing to give in to the insistent press of Kara’s fingertips. Kara steps closer again after carelessly unclipping her cape, letting it fall in a silken pool of red at her back. She wraps one arm at Lena’s back, cupping light at her jaw with her free hand, and kisses her, all teeth and tongue and messy heat.

She smells like iron and gunpowder and sweat, and Lena bows in her grasp, pliant and aching. She lets Kara lift her onto her desk, sweeping stray papers and pens off the surface with a careless arm. Kara leans over her, hands moving to pet at her waist, kissing in long hard strokes, so unlike her usual careful affections.

“Kara,” Lena murmurs, pressing one hand to the flat of Kara’s chest, “Are you sure everything is okay?”

Kara immediately pulls back from Lena’s mouth, hair falling in a curtain around them, hands moving to press hard at the desk on either side of Lena’s hips. Lena feels herself slick against her own underwear, notices again the blood on Kara’s skin, the hard set of her brow, and feels her pulse throb lower.

There’s a sort of hollow anger settled tense below Kara’s skin, straining at her neck and shoulders, biting at her eyes, her mouth.

For the first time Lena thinks nothing of the moonlight and nothing of the sun, and only of the shadow that exists in them both.

Kara exhales shakily, dropping her head to Lena’s chest, pressing a hard kiss at the divot of her collarbone.

“I’m fine,” she says. Though her voice is muffled, her tone is still hard. Lena is about to protest again before Kara continues. “I will never let anything happen to you.”

“Kara,” Lena sighs, she scratches lightly at Kara’s back, feeling her ease against her. “I know that, sweetheart.”

Kara raises her head, eyes flashing a dangerous red before fading back to blue. She kisses her—too hard again, her mouth bruising—and Lena whimpers into her mouth, bringing her knees up around Kara’s waist, shifting until Kara is cradled in the sling of her legs.

Blood rushes in Lena’s ears, drowning the endless hum of the night-drenched city until all she hears is the wet smack of their lips and Kara’s quiet moans, uncurling from her throat in small, staccato whimpers.

Lena tangles her fingers in Kara’s hair, tilting their mouths together until their noses and chins press close, relishing in the needy press of Kara’s lips against her own.

“Baby,” she pants, pulling away, moving her hand to fit at Kara’s cheek, turning her head to press a kiss at the bridge of her nose, brushing her lips carefully over her eyelids. “Please.”

Kara gasps something a few syllables short of a response, tucking her face into the crook of Lena’s neck, breathing in short, humid bursts against the soft skin of her throat. Her fingers fumble for the zipper at Lena’s waist, tugging hard until the thin metal growls along the length of her skirt. Lena lifts her hips, letting Kara pull her skirt down her legs, pouting when the fabric catches around her knees.

Lena watches Kara kneel in front of her her, her hands curled around Lena’s calves, knees digging into the plush carpet. She considers Lena with a steady, dark gaze, tugging Lena forward until her hips hang off the edge of the desk, thumbing over her knees before settling her palms high on Lena’s thighs.

Lena exhales sharply, shifting against the cool surface of the desk, feeling suddenly exposed in the glass-walled office, black lace all that separates her from Kara’s eyes.

They’ve gotten this far before, but something has always stopped them: imminent meetings or looming copy deadlines or Kara’s careful, bashful chivalry.

But.

Time stretches vast tonight and Kara is shifting forward, pressing a hot open-mouthed kiss against the inside of Lena’s thigh, dragging her lips higher, nipping a gentle bite at the tense, straining muscle that stretches taught at the height of Lena’s leg.

Lena keens, throwing her head back, hearing more than feeling it thud hard against the desk.

Heat coils low in her stomach, simmering like stoked-embers in her belly. Lena is wound so deliciously tight she worries what will happen when she snaps.

“Okay?” Kara gasps against her skin, sucking a kiss against Lena’s skin to punctuate the question.

Lena opens her mouth to answer, but Kara moves her hands to cup at the back of Lena’s thighs, urging her hips higher, and she chokes on the words. Kara’s palms burn against Lena’s skin, and Lena can feel her breath, hot and ragged, against her.

Kara nuzzles at the coarse lace of Lena’s panties, her cheeks brushing the sensitive skin of Lena’s upper thigh, and though heat flashes liquid-hot at the quick of her, she feels something else, too.

Kara’s cheeks are wet.

Kara is crying.

Lena stills. Her panic, briefly forgotten in the whirlwind of Kara’s wanting hands and wet mouth, returns to lance sharply through her chest.

“Baby?” Lena says, leveraging herself onto her forearms, wriggling free of Kara’s hands, “Kara, what’s wrong?”

Kara’s answers is a wordless whine, and she shakes her head roughly at Lena’s retreat, moving back as though to kiss again at Lena’s skin. Lena shifts her hips back onto her desk, moving to sit, and catches Kara’s chin easily in her palm. She tilts Kara’s face toward her, and sighs out lowly, distressed, at the wet streaks that track down Kara’s cheeks, her eyes red-rimmed and wet.

“Kara,” Lena says again, biting back the fear that colors her voice, “Please tell me what happened.”

“It’s nothing,” Kara says, gasping out the words more than speaking, grating and low. “I want to keep going.”

Lena frowns, dropping Kara’s chin and pressing carefully at her chest until she moves away from the desk, letting Lena step down onto the floor. Kara watches her from her stoop on the floor, caught between slurred, heavy fatigue and a pressing, swallowing sorrow.

Lena stands frozen above her, hands hovering uncertain at her side. For a moment, the woman before her, bloodstained and heartbroken and hard, looks like a stranger.

But then—Kara raises a hand to rub hard at her eyes, gasping out a sob behind the flat heel of her hand, and when she drops her arm, raising her chin to meet Lena’s gaze, her lower lip is trembling. Lena closes the distance between them in a single stride and pulls Kara to her, one hand wrapping tight at her shoulders, the other tangling in her hair. Kara breaks immediately, melting into Lena’s embrace, burying her face in Lena’s stomach, choking back deep, wet gasps.

“I promised to protect you,” Kara keens, the words muffled in the fabric of Lena’s blouse, “I just don’t know how to save you from this.”

“Baby,” Lena sighs, petting at Kara’s hair, only half-hearing her supplications. “Sweetheart, what happened?”

At this Kara seems to right herself, pulling away enough to look up at Lena through tear-stained lashes. Lena wipes soft at Kara’s cheeks with her thumbs, rubs gentle circles at her temples, soothing her fractured syllables.

Kara heaves a sigh, nuzzling into Lena’s hand, swallowing hard. “There was an attack on the DEO.”

Lena feels her heart skip a beat, dread falling heavy to the pit of her stomach. She crouches down until their profiles are level, presses close until she can feel the heavy stutter of Kara’s breath against her lips.

“Is Alex okay?”

Kara exhales a shaky laugh at Lena’s concern, pressing a quick, soggy kiss to her cheek. “Everyone is fine. I just—” she trails off, eyes fixating on a point above Lena’s head, carefully avoiding her eyes. “It was amateur work really, but they had a lot of heavy Alien machinery.” She gestures at her torn uniform, at the quickly-healing gash that mars her arm. She meets Lena’s eyes now, and Lena recognizes the veiled set of her mouth, the careful tilt of her brow.

Kara is hiding something.

“They threatened you,” Kara says finally, voice breaking high on the final syllable. She tilts closer to bury her face in Lena’s neck, “they threatened to hurt you.”

Lena sighs low, catching Kara’s face in her palms. “Oh baby,” she moves closer to pepper kisses over the bridge of Kara’s nose, across her high-cut cheekbones. “I’m safe, see?” she grabs for Kara’s hand, pressing their joined fingers against her chest until she knows Kara can feel the steady beat of her heart against her palm. “I’m okay.”

Kara nods slowly, looking more like herself now. “I was just scared, I guess.”

Lena laughs, abrupt and short, smirking when Kara looks up at her in confusion. “What? You were scared so you decided to ravage me?”

Kara laughs now too, red-blush creeping high in her cheeks. “I just wanted to be close to you.”

Lena hums low, feeling reflexive heat spike in her belly. “Well you only have to ask.”

Kara grins, tears all but dried now, and shifts her hand where it still rests against Lena’s chest, thumbing at the warm weight of her breast. “Is that so?”

“Kara Danvers,” Lena says, raising an eyebrow, pitching her voice high in faux surprise, “so forward.”

“Well,” Kara says, that smile still curling at her cheeks, “you aren’t wearing any pants.”

Lena laughs again. “And whose fault is that?” She pauses for a moment, studying Kara’s face. Below her bravado, tension still pulls her expression taught, purple smudges of exhaustion deepening the skin beneath her eyes. She looks bone-tired, chin sinking low against her chest, and Lena coaxes them both to their feet.

“As much as I want to continue,” she pauses to let the insinuation settle thick in the air between them, “I think you need some sleep.”

Kara look as though she briefly considers protesting, but thinks better of it at Lena’s expression. “Maybe just a little.”

Lena guides them toward the couch, nudging at Kara’s hips until she settles into the plush, leather fabric. “Rest here,” she says quietly, “I can call us a car later.” She eyes her desk, feeling a tug of arousal at the sight of her papers strewn on the floor, her skirt a haphazard pile on the cream colored carpet. “I have a few more things to finish up.”

Kara stretches into a recline, pillowing her head on one arm while the other reaches for Lena, her hand catching at her waist. She yawns before proffering her cheek for a kiss that Lena willingly delivers.

“Will you stay?” Kara says, words already slurring, eye-lids drooping closed, “just until I sleep?”

Lena nods carefully, her chest catching, sweet and breakable, that tender ache of affection too big to be contained between the cage of her ribs. “Always.”

“Promise?” Kara sighs, sounding remarkably young, lashes fluttering against her cheek as she struggles to stay awake.

Lena forgets all about the smothering shadow of tonight, of the lie Kara told, of the woman she didn’t recognize crouching before her on her office floor.

She sees only her Kara, battle-scarred and soft, and she nods.

“I promise.”