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goldenempyrean · 9 months

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Festivities And A Fever

〚 Notes - Just something to fuel my longing need for supercorp :,) 〛

〚 Pairing- Supercorp 〛

〚 Summary - Visiting your girlfriend's parent's house for the first time is bound to make anyone feel nervous but maybe it's not just nerves that's bothering Lena. 〛

〚 Wordcount - 2460 〛

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“You’re quiet today.” Kara murmured softly, her hand gently squeezing the woman in the passenger seat’s thigh as the two drove along an empty road.

Lena sighed, trying to hide the discomfort she was feeling. "Just a little tired, that's all love." she replied, offering Kara a weak smile as she interlocked hands with the

"Are you sure that's all it is?" Kara asked, concern evident in her voice. "You've been acting off since yesterday. Did something happen?"

"Just a little headache, I think," Lena finally admitted, trying to downplay the rhythmic pounding at the front of her temples, "Maybe I didn't get enough sleep last night, I’ve kinda been fretting about making a good impression on your mom."

Kara's expression softened with understanding, but her worry only intensified. "Oh, Lena, you don't have to fret about that. Eliza already likes you, you two have spoken on the phone loads. Besides, you're amazing just the way you are. No need to impress anyone." She smiled, leaning over to press a quick kiss to her cheek.

Lena appreciated Kara's reassurance, but she couldn't shake the feeling of responsibility to make a good impression on Eliza, especially since it was their first Christmas together as girlfriends. "I know she likes me, but I still want her to see that I'm good for you, Kara. And I want everything to go smoothly," Lena said, trying to mask the hint of a sniffle in her voice.

But of course, Kara's super hearing picked up on her sniffling, she looked over, her brow crinkling with unease, she hated when Lena wasn’t fully honest with her, "Darling, are you sure you're just tired? You can tell me, y’know." she said, casting a worried glance at her girlfriend as the latter stared out of the widow, resting her head against the glass.

Lena quickly shook her head, hoping to avoid further questioning. "No, I promise, it's just a little headache, nothing serious," she replied, attempting to hide her reddening nose with the back of her hand.

Kara wasn't entirely convinced, but she didn't want to push her too much. "Alright, if you say so," she let the subject go but she made a mental note to keep a closer eye on her.

As the drive continued, Lena's headache only seemed to worsen. The rhythmic motion of the car and the warmth of the heater made her eyelids heavy. She tried to stay engaged in the conversation with Kara, but her body felt sluggish, and her thoughts were becoming harder to focus on.

Feeling more exhausted with each passing minute, Lena eventually leaned her head back against the headrest, closing her eyes briefly. She tried to fight off the urge to sleep, not wanting to miss out on precious moments with Kara, it wasn’t the two got to be alone like this and she knew how much Kara enjoyed driving with her. However, as much as she tried to fight it, the fatigue eventually overwhelmed her, and she drifted off into a light doze.

As Lena drifted off to sleep, Kara's super hearing picked up on a soft snoring sound emanating from her girlfriend. It was a sound she had never heard from Lena before. It was cute, adorable even, but it also raised Kara's worry a few notches. She’d never once in their whole 2 years of sharing a bed heard her snore.

Kara tried to suppress a smile at the sound, she was so adorable, but her concern remained. She continued to drive carefully, glancing over at Lena from time to time to make sure she was okay. The snoring persisted, occasionally interrupted by a muffled sniffle.

Before long they finally arrived at Eliza's home, and Kara parked up the car before gently nudging Lena awake. "Hey, sleepyhead, we're here," she said softly, reaching over to stroke her cheek.

Lena stirred and blinked her eyes open, rubbing her eyes groggily. She quickly tried to stifle the snoring, realizing that she must have been making those noises in her sleep. "Oh, sorry," she murmured, her face flushing with embarrassment, “We’re here?”

Kara smiled warmly, reassuring Lena, "It's alright, I thought it was pretty cute and yes we’re here now love.”

Stepping out into the chilly Midvale air sent a shiver running through the ravenette’s body and she instantly brung her arms up around herself, trying to fight off the icy chill.

Ready to meet the family?" Kara asked, trying to lighten the mood. She could tell Lena was still not feeling well, but she didn't want to spoil the holiday spirit.

Lena nodded, trying to sound enthusiastic. "Absolutely! I've been looking forward to this." She didn't want to disappoint Kara or make her worry more than she already did.

Hand in hand, the two came into the house, greeted by the warm flicker of the burning fireplace and the inviting smell of a fresh holiday meal being prepared in the kitchen. Eliza was already waiting for them, wearing a warm smile as she embraced her daughter and then Lena.

"Kara, sweetheart, it's so good to see you again," Eliza smiled, holding Kara close. "And you must be Lena! I've heard so much about you, it’s so nice to finally meet you. Oh you’re beautiful dear."

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Mrs. Danvers," Lena replied politely, trying to suppress a cough that threatened to escape her throat, “Thank you for having me here, I really appreciate it.”

Eliza smiled warmly. "Please dear, call me Eliza. We're family now." She turned to Kara. "Kara, why don't you show Lena around? I'll finish up in the kitchen. Alex is here too with Maggie, but they’ve just nipped out to get some more drinks for everyone.”

Kara nodded as she took Lena's hand and led her through the house, giving her a tour of the place she had grown up in. Lena smiled and listened attentively, trying her best to appear engaged all whilst trying her best to ignore the aches which were forming in her joints.

As they passed by the living room, Lena noticed the Christmas tree adorned with twinkling lights and ornaments, and a pang of nostalgia hit her. She recalled the many years she spent Christmas alone, without the warmth of a loving family. Lillian hadn’t been one for gifts, never mind celebrating. She had grown up feeling isolated and distant from her own parents, and as such the holiday season was always been a difficult time for her.

After the tour, Kara took Lena to the guest room where they would be sleeping for the duration of their visit. The room was cosy, with holiday decorations and a wide bed in the centre, and they placed their luggage on the floor.

Lena attempted to gather some energy and enthusiasm as she gazed around the room, but her headache had worsened and her energy was dwindling by the minute. "This room looks lovely," she murmured, weakly smiling at Kara. "Thank you so much for bringing me here."

Kara recognised Lena's discomfort and didn't want it to escalate it further "You're welcome, love. I'm glad you like it," she replied, concern etched on her face. "But now, I think we need to actually address how you’re feeling, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?” Lena asked, her eyes casting down to her feet.

"Do I really need to say it?" Kara said, sitting on the edge of the bed besides Lena, “You should try and rest for a bit while its quiet.” She murmured softly, telling her sniffling girlfriend to lay down.

Lena did as she was told. feeling a little guilty for causing Kara to worry. She thought she’d done a better job at hiding it. But she couldn't deny that having Kara by her side was a comfort. She closed her eyes, trying to relax and let the pain subside.

Time passed, and Lena's headache didn't seem to improve. Not only that but she kept switching between feeling blazing hot and shiveringly cold and it felt like there was a tickle in her nose. But like everything else, Lena tried to ignore it, instead, she shifted her focus to the sound of Kara's calming voice, telling her stories about their childhood memories, hoping to take her mind off the discomfort.

However, as the tickle in her nose intensified, Lena couldn't hold back anymore. She let out a series of soft, stifled sneezes, one after the other.

"Bless you," Kara said with a gentle smile, "Hold on, want me to go get you some tissues?"

"Thank you," Lena replied with a sniffle, "And yes please, if its not too much of a hassle."

Kara quickly fetched some tissues and handed them to Lena. As Lena wiped her nose, she felt a wave of fatigue wash over her again. "I'm sorry for getting sick." she murmured quietly, her voice distinctly hoarse now.

But the Kyrptonian only shook her head, “You have nothing to apologise for love.”

The two stayed like that for an hour or so because they heard Eliza’s warm voice calling them downstairs for dinner.

As they made their way downstairs, Lena clung to Kara's arm for support, trying to maintain her composure. She didn't want to appear weak or vulnerable, especially not in front of Kara's family. The scent of the delicious holiday meal filled the air, making her stomach growl, but her appetite seemed to have disappeared along with her energy.

Eliza greeted them warmly, noticing the slight change in Lena's demeanour. "Is everything alright you two?” She asked kindly as the pair came to sit opposite Maggie and Alex at the table.

Eliza, ever the caring mother figure, noticed Lena's pale complexion and the slight sheen of sweat on her forehead. "Lena, dear, are you feeling alright?" Eliza asked, genuine concern in her voice.

Lena offered a weak smile and tried to play it off. "I'm okay, Eliza, just a little tired from the drive, I think," she replied, attempting to suppress a cough that threatened to escape.

Kara, knowing her mother's intuition, decided to chime in. "It was a long journey, I’m sure we’re all a little tired." Kara said, hoping to put her worries at ease.

But as dinner progressed, Lena's condition seemed to worsen. She tried her best to participate in the conversation, but her responses became shorter and more subdued. The pounding headache, the chills, and the incessant sneezing made it challenging for her to focus on anything else.

Eliza was smart and she easily picked up on the obvious struggling Lena. She exchanged a concerned look with Kara silently questioning what was wrong and the blonde subtly mouthed the words "she's sick." Eliza nodded in understanding as she gave Lena a sympathetic smile but decided that if she’d stayed silent, there must’ve been a reason and she chose not to push the matter at the table.

But once the food was eaten, everyone gathered in the living room to talk and share memories. Lena tried her best to participate in the conversations, but her discomfort was becoming increasingly evident. The sneezing persisted, and she could feel her nose becoming more congested by the minute.

"I'm sorry." Lena mumbled, her voice raspy, "I really didn't mean to get sick like this and ruin the evening."

Eliza came up to Lena's side, sending her a comforting smile. "Oh, dear, you have nothing to apologise for," Eliza answered warmly, "it's completely normal to get sick every now and then." It happens to everyone. What matters is that you’re safe and here with us.”

Kara nodded in agreement. "Eliza’s right. We just want you to feel comfortable and rest if you need to.”

Lena felt a wave of gratitude wash over her at their understanding and reassurance. "Thank you," she said softly, "I'm just not used to being sick around people. It's always been a bit of a vulnerability for me."

Eliza patted her shoulder gently. "I understand, but you don't have to worry about that here. We're family, and that means taking care of each other."

With a gentle smile, Eliza went to the kitchen and returned with a cup of honey tea. "Here, dear," she said, handing it to Lena, "This should help soothe your throat and ease your congestion."

Lena gratefully accepted the tea, taking a careful sip. The warmth and sweetness provided some comfort, and she felt the soothing effect on her throat. "Thank you, Eliza," she said sincerely, touched by the care and kindness she was receiving – it was so different to how she would’ve been treated with her old family.

Eliza smiled warmly, sitting beside Lena. "Sometimes, despite it all, what you really need when you're sick is a mom," she said gently, "And I'm more than happy to be that for you today."

Lena's eyes welled up with tears as she nodded, feeling the warmth of the motherly embrace Eliza was offering. "Thank you," she repeated, her voice soft and full of emotion.

After spending some more time with the family, Kara noticed that Lena was growing more fatigued. She gently suggested they go outside for some fresh air to help clear Lena's head. Lena agreed, knowing the cold air might provide some relief for her stuffy nose.

The two bundled up in warm coats and stepped out onto the porch, finding solace in the crisp night air. They sat on the porch swing, the bright night stars twinkling above them, and the peaceful atmosphere around them was calming. Lena leaned her head against Kara's shoulder, feeling the comfort of each other’s warmth.

As they swayed gently on the swing, the rhythmic motion and the soothing atmosphere lulled them both into a state of drowsiness. The blonde noticed Lena falling asleep, placed a gentle kiss on her forehead, then leaned her head against Lena's, letting her eyes drift shut as well. The rhythmic motion of the swing and the fresh night air helped Kara relax, and soon she too was dozing off, holding Lena close in her arms.

Unbeknownst to them, Eliza had been quietly observing from the living room window. Seeing the two of them sleeping peacefully on the porch swing, she couldn't help but smile at the sight. She grabbed a cosy, soft blanket and silently made her way outside.

Eliza gently draped the blanket over Kara and Lena, making sure they were snug and warm. She leaned down and placed a soft kiss on each of their foreheads, feeling a sense of joy and contentment knowing that Kara had found someone like Lena to share her life with. She couldn’t be more proud of them.

With a motherly smile, Eliza whispered, "Sleep well, my girls," before quietly returning inside to let them rest.

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#supercorp #supercorp fic #lena luthor #kara danvers #lena luthor x kara danvers #kara zor el #lena luthor sickfic #supergirl #supergirl sickfic #fluff #whump #comfort #sickfic #sick lena luthor #soft #eliza danvers

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lots-of-pockets · 5 months

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My favourite

Advent day 9: You’re my favourite patient

Pairing: Sick Lena x Kara

Majorly unedited I apologise

Kara presses a tender kiss to the top of Lena's head as she settles back against the pillows beneath her and lets out a soft sigh, her hand absentmindedly rising to comb through her girlfriends long, tangled tresses.

It was late, and after hours upon hours of back and forth from the toilet, the Luthor's stomach had finally settled enough to allow them both to get some much needed sleep. Lena in particular. The poor thing not only had a pretty severe case of the flu, but her stomach had also decided to join in on the fun too.

They'd both put that part down to food poisoning, which in itself was a pretty bad, and that combined with the flu courtesy of the current weather, it was safe to say Kara had never seen her so miserable.

Seeing her normally tough, independent girlfriend struggle to even walk hurt Kara more than she'd like to admit, and she wasn't ashamed to admit she couldn't wait for this to pass so they could continue with their normal.

A hoarse cough muffled against her chest was enough to bring her out of her thoughts, and she looks down to see Lena's face scrunched up in discomfort as she was forced out of whatever light sleep she'd managed to fall into. Kara pouts softly as she rests her hand on the bare skin of the woman back from where her shirt had ridden up, the pad of her thumb grazing over warm skin.

"You okay baby?" She murmurs, lips grazing Lena's forehead. Lena nods as she attempts to clear her throat, cheek settling back against Kara's chest as her hand rises to cling to the material of her shirt.

It was clear to see she wasn't, but Kara knows not to push. With a quiet hum, she tugs the blankets up a little more and makes sure Lena was as bundled up as she possibly could be. The soft exhale of content that emits from Lena's lips sends pleasant shiver up her spine, and Kara couldn't help but smile as continues with the gentle ministrations against her back.

Before Kara could even realise she'd fallen asleep, the morning sun was peeking in though the partially open curtains and waking her up. With a somewhat confused frown, she glances down at her watch and see's it was only six in the morning. Just three hours after she'd apparently fallen asleep. With a frown, she brings her attention down to the warm weight that still sprawled against her chest. Lena.

She was still sleeping somewhat peacefully, quiet snores that only ever appear when she was sick escaping her slightly parted lips. Her cheeks were still flushed red, and Kara gently rests the back of her fingers against one of them to gauge her temperature.

Warm, but not concerningly so. Kara knows it was probably because of her as opposed to an actual fever.

Due to the fact she was a krypton, her natural body temperature generally tended to sit a little higher than a humans does. Lena likes to call her her own personal space heater, and she had to admit there was definitely some truth to that. It was useful more than not also, but perhaps she'd have to refrain from being so close when Lena was sick.

With a soft sigh, Kara presses her lips against Lena's forehead. That action alone seems to unintentionally rouse the Luthor from her own slumber, and Kara watches as her eyes blearily flicker open.

"Morning baby," she greets in a quiet murmur, and Lena lets out a deep, hoarse cough that she muffles against Kara's shirt before sleepily returning the sentiment. "How are you feeling?" Kara reaches out and brushes a stray strand or hair out of Lena's face, thumb tenderly grazing over the soft skin of her cheek.

Lena smiles slightly, "Okay," she croaks out as she tugs the blankets sup to her chin, sounding so unlike herself. "I'm sorry about yesterday." She sheepishly smiles.

Kara frowns in confusion, "Why are you sorry?"

"For being so whiny? Needy? I don't know." Lena shrugs. "I just know I wasn't the easiest patient you've ever taken care of, so I'm sorry."

"Oh shush," Kara rolls her eyes. "you're sick. You're allowed to be whiny and needy. In fact, I love it when you are. It means that you trust me." She wraps her arms around Lena's slightly smaller frame and gives her a tight squeeze. In response, Lena nuzzles her nose against her neck and lets out a soft, content sigh. Kara automatically grins at the action.

"And besides," she adds after a few silent moments, earning herself a soft hum of acknowledgment from a still sleepy Lena. "you're my favourite patient."

#supercorp #supercorp fanfiction #sick!lena x Kara #sick lena Luthor #sickfic #soft kara danvers #soft lena luthor #supergirl x lena luthor #lena luthor x kara danvers

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stevespisces · 12 days

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graceland too by pheobe bridgers is so supercorp

#supercorp #they make me sick #lena singing to kara #or vise versa #kara danvers #lena luthor

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thecasualqueer · 4 months

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If Kara lost her powers her first time being sick would be hell....... for Lena I mean

#Lena seems like someone who gets sick a lot and just carries on #so when she hears Kara whining about a little headache it makes her so unbelievably annoyed #she still takes care of her though #supergirl #supercorp #lena luthor #kara danvers #lena lesbian luthor

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owl-with-a-pen · 1 year

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It had been Lena’s oversight that had led to this, she was certain.

With such little time to prepare and build a suitable firearm that could both withstand and disperse Jarhanpurium, she’d unintentionally left Brainy with the more complex of two tasks. It had made sense at the time to have him devise the blueprint for the weapon, especially as he had on-hand experience with the element that she herself was lacking. It was only when she was finished reviewing Lex’s reverse-engineered code that she realised her mistake.

Alike as they were when it came to their work, Brainy had slipped into a similar meditative focus as Lena’s, his eyes flickering easily across the screen, fingers a steady whir on the keyboard. He appeared as immersed in his planning as Lena had come to expect from him, except for one major caveat.

Brainy was shaking.

Although his focus was still on his allotted task, Lena couldn’t ignore the shadows that had deepened beneath his dark eyes, nor could she overlook the sudden sallowness of his features. He’d disguised himself well with the use of his inducer, but such an illusion could only go so deep – Lena knew that better than most.

She also knew that despite Brainy’s insistence that he was healing at an expected rate, said rate had never once been specified. Brainy had endured a near-lethal dose of radiation inside Leviathan’s ship. If it wasn’t for his Coluan physiology, he would have already been dead ten times over. Even now, it was the only thing keeping him on his feet. That – of course – and the Martian nanites Alex had injected him with.

The urge to question his ability to continue was on the tip of Lena’s tongue when a shudder fiercer than any before it struck Brainy’s spine. He jerked his hands from the keyboard with a startled half-stumble as he wound his arms around himself, ducking his head with a grimace.

Lena abandoned the code immediately. She took a cautious step forward. “Brainy—?”

“I’m fi—” Brainy began, only to clench his jaw shut when his teeth threatened to chatter instead. His dark hair clung limply to the side of his face, glistening with moisture.

“That would’ve been a lie and you know it,” Lena said plainly. She held out her hand, raising a brow. “Come on. You need to take a break.”

Predictably, Brainy refused her. “I c-c-can’t.”

“Yes, you can. And you will.” Lena was starting to see a familiarity in Brainy’s stubbornness that certainly rivalled her own. Fortunately, she had a pretty good idea who would win in this scenario. Without giving Brainy the chance to move away again, she took his arm, hooking their elbows together. “Now, let’s get you somewhere you can sit down, shall we?”

By now, Brainy was in such a poor state that even standing appeared too taxing for him. He didn’t try to argue with her any longer. Instead, with gritted teeth he used one hand to clutch feebly at the edge of the workbench, the other to anchor himself to Lena like his last lifeline.

He barely made it one step forward before his legs buckled.

Lena hissed out in shock as she was unceremoniously pulled down along with him. She barely had enough time to cushion Brainy’s fall, manoeuvring herself so that she could cushion his head when it threatened to knock against the cabinet.

All too suddenly, Lena found herself sat with her back against that same cabinet, Brainy cradled against her side. Her eyes were wide with alarm as she reviewed the quickly regressing state of him. He was burning up against her arm, intermittent shudders strong enough to shake her bones.

This hadn’t been a part of the plan. She’d certainly suspected that Brainy needed more time to rest than he’d told anyone, but she would have never envisioned that the nanites would have enforced it quite this viciously.

Lena tried to keep from trembling herself. She could learn the inner-workings of any disease if given the time and independence to study it, but offering the bedside manner required to care for the person said disease had affected? That was where her expertise regrettably ended.

But this wasn’t about her. It had been a lesson she’d learned far too late into this whole venture – something she wished wholeheartedly she could take back, so that she might have made better decisions, cultivated stronger friendships.

Despite what Brainy had seen in that code, what she had admitted from creating it in the first place, he had still wished to apologise for what he had done, as though that in any way could compare to her own sins. Not an hour ago, they had stood with a cabinet as their divider, treating each other with the same wary temperament of a feral cat. Now here they were together, sat on the floor, Brainy only half lucid in her arms.

This wouldn’t do at all. “Brainy,” Lena said softly, brushing the hair away from his ear. “Hey, listen to me, okay? We need to get you up. Do you think you can do that?”

It was a big ask, she knew that, but Brainy’s condition would only worsen if he was left to lie on a cold tile floor. This lab wasn’t exactly accommodating for a sickly patient, but at the very least there was a gurney not too far from their position that she could use as a temporary sleeping arrangement for Brainy’s needs.

Brainy’s eyes were bloodshot when he opened them sluggishly to meet hers, nodding slowly. Lena smiled her relief, grateful that he was still responsive enough for this to work. She squeezed his arm reassuringly.

“On three? One, two—”

With her arm secured around his back and Brainy’s hanging somewhere at her waist, they were able to work together to hoist themselves up. Brainy dug his hands around the cabinet the moment he was back on two feet, groaning out with a disturbing machine-quality crackle.

Lena could see a bloom of green pigmentation surface across Brainy’s cheeks. The roots of his hair were taking on a distinctly lighter tone as well. Lena knew Brainy had an element of psychic control over his inducer that other species did not. It ran in tandem with his techno-organic physiology, but that only made it all the more alarming to see it beginning to fail now.

“Are you okay to keep going?” Lena asked, eyeing the gurney carefully. Even if Brainy was at risk of collapsing again, the route to the make-shift bedding was a straight enough shot that she was confident she could get him there in one piece.

Brainy swallowed hard, a few short breaths passing between his teeth. “As I’ll ever be,” he muttered.

Lena took that as her cue.

Together, they were able to stagger and stumble their way to the gurney where Brainy promptly collapsed onto his side, eyes squeezing shut.

He shuddered again even harder, pressing his face into the pillow with a gasp. “Everything-everything’s spinning,” he croaked. His lips trembled suddenly, and Lena realised with a horrible twist that he was fighting the urge to cry.

She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. It was only made worse when Brainy’s next question sounded out in a near whine: “Where’s Nia?”

Lena’s heart plummeted to her feet. This could not have been further from her area of expertise if she’d tried. But Brainy needed her to say something; delirious or not, it was only right.

She decided to stick with the truth.

“She’s with Alex,” Lena reminded him gently. “She’ll be back soon, I’m sure.”

“I didn’t—never wanted to h-hurt her—” Tears caught in his lashes as his chest convulsed with a new twist of pain. He clawed weakly at the gurney. “Lena…”

Lena felt truly sorry for Brainy’s situation, even more-so knowing that there was nothing she could do to ease his discomfort. The pained spasms were either a symptom of Leviathan’s radiation or the natural healing process Brainy was currently undergoing. At this point, it wasn’t clear what would have been more agonising.

When Brainy’s hand reached out to her, she took it without hesitation. She somewhat regretted that impulse when she remembered Brainy’s strength enhancements, although his grip was nowhere close to as tight as she’d anticipated. Most of his processes had likely been diverted elsewhere in an effort to heal.

Lena tightened her hold around him instead, squeezing in a way that she hoped he’d feel comforted by. The last thing she wanted was for him to feel like he was going through this alone. Especially after everything he’d put himself through already.

“It’ll pass,” Lena said, trying to keep her voice steady. “You stay here and rest. I’ll keep working on the weapon.”

Brainy’s eyes flicked open at that. He held her gaze for an impressive beat before trying to force himself up with energy he didn’t have. “I s-should be helping.”

Lena knew that feeling a little too well. Her actions, although far more deplorable than Brainy’s had ever been, had left her in a much fitter state when all had been said and done. It almost didn’t seem fair, especially when even after every sacrifice that had put Brainy in this position, he was still refusing to sit idle.

But this wasn’t a choice he was allowed to make.

Lena took his shoulder, holding him to the gurney with surprisingly little effort. “No, Brainy,” she said swiftly. “What you need to do is let those nanites do their job.” Her eyes creased fondly. “You’ll be much more useful at full capacity now, won’t you?”

Brainy didn’t respond to her in words she understood. A slurred Coluan phrase slipped past his teeth, a sound like nothing the human body was capable of producing. Still, Lena had good reason to believe it was not a pleasant phrase.

It was the last thing he was able to say, however. Shortly after, his lids fell heavy and with a final muted shudder, he slipped back into some form of unconscious state.

Lena smirked. “That’s what I thought.”

She waited for Brainy’s hold to lax around her hand before she reluctantly pulled herself away. She made a private note to keep him in her periphery at all times while she worked. If anything changed in his state, she would be the first to know.

She only hoped he’d feel better when he woke.

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Nia was able to reach the lab in record time thanks to the pre-set co-ordinates on Lena’s portal watch. It wasn’t exactly her preferred method of travel – or even in her top five – but without a confident flyer on standby, it was easily the quickest way to get from A to B.

Alex had already headed back to the Tower to prepare, which left Nia with drop-off duty for their acquired bottle of Jarhanpurium.

The bottle had a sickly glow to it that still managed to starkly juxtapose the toxic element she was used to seeing from Kryptonite. It felt kind of warm in her hand, volatile, like one wrong move and kaboom.

It was all in her head, probably just her nerves talking. They were on such a tight schedule to get this all right, it hardly felt real that they’d only started putting the plan into action a few hours ago.

She’d used to rely on Brainy’s timekeeping skills for stuff like that. Now?

Now… she wasn’t even close to the right headspace to think about that.

As Nia hurried through the artificial jungle that was Lena’s lab, she realised just how alien this place looked. Even the Legion ship had a more human touch than this.

Nia didn’t let it deter her, especially when she saw Lena stood behind a workbench, avid expression watching a holographic screen as she typed something into the keypad below her.

It was only when Nia caught the faint but distinct glow of three projectors in her periphery that she froze where she stood.

In the gurney tucked away in one corner of the lab, Brainy lay still. His chest was rising and falling in a staggered, uneven pattern, the ends of his pale hair blanketed across the curve of his nose, grazing past his lips with every exhale.

Nia’s hand tightened around the bottle, an itch in her brain urging her to change course.

With a sharp breath, she let the urge slide past. Instead, she kept to her original path, nodding at Lena when she finally raised her head from her work.

“Excellent,” Lena said, taking the bottle from Nia’s hand with a smile of approval. “Thank you. Now we have everything we need to stop my brother.”

Nia smiled back. It was kind of weird, trusting Lena like this after everything that had happened, but if Kara was willing to give her another chance, she had to believe that it was worth it.

It still felt unnerving, especially as Lena had yet to mention the elephant sleeping peacefully in the room.

Nia cleared her throat. “How is he?” she asked casually.

Lena’s eyes shone with something that looked almost… sad? She folded her hands in front of her. “I’ll be honest, the nanites have started presenting some… alarming symptoms.” She looked over at the gurney for the first time, twisting her lips. “I thought it best that he tried to sleep it off.”

Nia closed her eyes. “Right.”

“I know you’re worried about him.”

Nia nearly wanted to smile. She shook her head. “He could’ve died,” she said. “I- If I hadn’t been there in time, he would’ve and I- I can’t believe he did this without us… without…”

“Telling you?”

Nia nodded wordlessly. She wiped at her eyes when she felt a tell-tale sting, sucking in a breath. “I thought he was getting better, and it was easier to… to feel angry with him when he wasn’t lying there in that ship, y’know?” She laughed bleakly. “But, he’s hurting, he’s been hurting this whole time and he didn’t want me to see it.”

“He fought hard to get this far,” Lena agreed. She winced. “I – um - got it into his head that doing everything to help now would be the first step forward. That was before he nearly collapsed on me, of course.”

Nia tried to hide her shudder. “He doesn’t need to prove himself,” she said thickly, brushing the hair from her eyes.

Lena smiled sadly. “Not to us.”

Nia pursed her lips. Of course Brainy would make it his new mission to do everything to prove his own worth. He’d struggled with that long before everything had gone to hell and now, he didn’t even have his inhibitors…

She did shiver then. All this time, Brainy had been acting without them. She couldn’t imagine how that must have felt. To experience every emotion so raw and unfiltered and yet he’d still managed to hide it from them all. No wonder he hadn’t been sleeping.

At least he was sleeping now.

“Thank you for this,” Lena said suddenly, relieving Nia from her thoughts. She raised the bottle in her hand. “I’ll set up the finishing touches for the weapon now. Give me about twenty minutes and it’ll be field-ready.”

“Great.” Nia didn’t move. She couldn’t bring herself to. Instead, she stood there with her arms crossed firmly over her chest.

Was it weird to linger like this? What was the alternative? She desperately wanted to keep her focus on the fight to come, and yet every time Brainy so much as shifted on that gurney, she felt herself instinctively flinch with the intent to turn towards him.

Lena made a clear show of appearing ignorant to her internal struggle, which Nia was grateful for.

When Brainy let out a particularly strained breath, his arm curving around his chest to clutch at his centre, Nia knew she couldn’t play dumb any longer. To her credit, Lena didn’t even offer a passing glance as she admitted defeat, heading back over to the gurney.

Nia couldn’t quit staring at the way Brainy looked now without his inducer. It felt like years since they’d defeated Brainy’s evil doppelganger together, since he’d combined his essence with that of his other two alternate selves in the life cores he now wore on his chest. That same light seemed to manifest as a sombre glow while he slept.

Curiously, she reached forward, touching the tips of her fingers to Brainy’s clammy forehead. She held her breath when Brainy’s lashes fluttered but ultimately remained closed.

She still wasn’t used to seeing him as himself. After all those months of forced separation, she’d even started wondering if removing his inhibitors had meant anything at all. Now, she could see those changes so plainly that it was impossible to discredit them.

God, she ached for a timeline where things could have gone differently, where Brainy had confided in her when all of this had started, where they’d been able to work this all out together instead of Brainy holding himself accountable for every move played in an infinitely complicated game of 5D chess, all in the name of her protection, to keep her safe. As though she’d needed it, like they hadn’t been partners – equals – this whole time. Maybe, if he’d realised that sooner, if he’d had someone there with him in Leviathan’s ship, it wouldn’t have bottled down to a lethal radiation trap with no conceivable escape.

One look on his face back there had told her everything she’d needed. Brainy’s declaration of love that still rang in her ears had meant nothing to her while he’d been so convinced of his own fate. He hadn’t expected anyone to come to his rescue, not after everything he’d done to divide himself from his loved ones. From her.

Was it ego that had brought him here, or selflessness? Maybe, somehow, it had been a twisted dose of both.

She wanted to hold him, she wanted to yell at him. Most importantly, though, she wanted to talk to him. She’d been intentionally standoffish with him when he’d given her his ring, but her cold front had been melting long before it even had the chance to freeze solid.

Because, when all was said and done, she’d missed him. She'd missed him so much. And now, even with her fingers tracing the invisible scars of his inhibitors, she still felt like she had to jump a chasm to reach him.

Suddenly, Brainy’s breathing shifted. He sighed out a soft, congested hum, his lashes fluttering open to look at her. His eyes were heavy lidded and bloodshot, but there was no denying that he recognised who was watching over him.

“Nia?” he croaked.

She wasn’t even sure he knew he remembered where he was, but every part of him relaxed in the knowledge of her presence. He reached for her hand; the fever and pain made his movements sluggish and uncoordinated, but she let him find her, latching to her wrist.

There was so much Nia wanted to say to him, so much she was sure he wanted to tell her in return. But, she knew in her heart that this wasn’t the time for it. She could feel the angry pulse of his fever through his hand and could almost imagine the nanites that were working ceaselessly inside his body to make him well. He still needed time. And, honestly? So did she.

Silently, Nia let the hand still hovering over Brainy’s forehead begin to wander. Her fingers started at the roots of his golden hair before travelling down through to the curls that had tightened at the nape of his neck where he’d begun to sweat trough his fever, scrunching them between her knuckles.

Brainy made a soft sound of contentment, pressing his head into her hand in wordless appreciation.

“It’s alright, Brainy,” Nia said, watching his eyes flicker as he registered her voice. “Rest, okay? You need it.”

And he really did. In all honesty, Nia had no idea when Brainy had last slept – none of them did. He’d become so reclusive in keeping these secrets, she’d hardly seen him outside of emergencies. And even then, he’d kept his distance. All she knew was that every new time she’d seen him over the last few months, the shadows beneath his eyes had always looked that bit darker.

She massaged his neck softly with the hand she still had locked in his hair, watching as Brainy’s eyes slipped closed again. It wasn’t long before his posture relaxed totally and his mouth fell slack. A mechanical purr echoed from somewhere in his chest as the last dregs of his consciousness faded.

Nia couldn’t help but smile at that. It was another thing she’d missed. Although rare in itself, Nia had always loved catching Brainy in those quiet unanimated moments of peaceful slumber. There were nights she could have laid there and watched him for hours – though such a thing hardly ever lasted that long.

She wondered how long he’d sleep for, now.

Then, with a shiver like ice in her veins, she remembered the plan. As though waking up from a dream herself, Nia realised exactly where she was stood. With Lena sharing the same space, likely minutes away from finishing the very gun she’d soon be handed. In the wake of that reality, Nia wondered instead how much sleep Brainy would even be allowed before he was inevitably pulled back into all of this.

She stroked her hand over his face one last time, relishing in the warmth of his skin, in this little uncomplicated moment they could share before everything exploded back into the casual chaos that surrounded their lives.

“Sleep tight,” Nia said, pecking him quickly on the cheek. Brainy didn’t respond this time, which was probably for the best. “I’ll see you soon.”

Until then, Nia had a job to do. She tugged her hand from Brainy’s hair, paying extra care to keep her borrowed Legion ring from snagging at any loose strands. She’d make sure to put his peace offering to good use in the fight to come.

When they saw each other again, she only hoped he’d have the rest he needed to heal.

Then, they would talk for real.

#supergirl #brainia #lena luthor #brainiac 5 #nia nal #dreamerdox #brainy #querl dox #supergirl fanfiction #my writing #no this is not a prompt it's actually a draft i've had sitting in my word docs since oh i dunno 6x01 first aired 😅#i did a lot of work on it mind i only had dialogue at the time and few basic stage directions #but basically this literally all came from me thinking that there was a scene missing between brainy being at the lab with lena and brainy #being at the fortress #and i only say that because of the curly hair #also i'm sick right now and i thought why not let's have brainy suffer with me #if there are any spelling errors blame it on the sinus infection ✌🏻

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silv3reyedstranger · 8 months

Text

ok get ready for a rambley vent:

im in tears every time i rewatch lena’s and then andrea’s acquisition of catco i’m like this is??? so gay?? like catco was just passed around the hands of hot ceos as a bargaining chip😭

first lena for kara then she sells it because of kara, and she sells it to andrea goddamn rojas and like it’s whiplash for EVERYONE. forget about for kara istg everyone there knows and is like for fucks sake can the three of yall just fuck nasty and solve whatever drama there is between you??

and then we get the i believe in you from lena to andrea and then the same from kara to lena in s6 like stopppppp can yall just keep it together for TWO SECONDS.

#im so sick of them!!!#the three of them have no chill #superrojascorp #lena luthor #andrea rojas #kara danvers #i hate how much i love them

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rjmac211 · 11 days

Text

Lena holds a gun to Lex

Lex: Kara Danvers is Supergirl

Lena: No shit Lex why do you think all the lights in my apartment are Red

Lex: What?

Lena: Sorry let me put this in idiot terms for you

Lena presses the gun against Lex’s head

Lena: I’ve been dating and fucking Supergirl for years and I’m sick of you trying to kill the love of my life

Lex: Lena-

Lena shoots Lex

Lena: With your last moments I just want you to know that I was the first and only Luthor to bring a Super to their knees

#lena luthor #supercorp #supercorp incorrect quotes #lex luthor #dark

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jazzfordshire · 8 months

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PRACTICAL MAGIC AU?!?!?

ABSOLUTELY, I have had this one in the dome for AGES but only now do I have the brain space for it. I only have one scene fully hammered out and it’s probably going to end up being a multichapter, but here’s a sneak peek:

"Why would I ever fall in love? I've never seen it do anything but make people miserable," Lena says. "It killed my mother. It's the reason my stepmother hates me."

"None of that was caused by love," Sam argues. “Your mother got sick, and your stepmother hates you because she hates herself and needs to take it out on someone.” She fusses with Lena's hair, starting to make an idle braid in it while Lena scoffs.

"I beg to differ."

"I don't think you'll be able to stop yourself when it happens," Sam says. She finishes the messy braid, combing her fingers through it until it's untangled again. "You're only 11. What happens when you grow up?"

"And you’re only 13. I have magic," Lena shrugs.

"I don't think even magic can do that. You can't just hit an off-switch."

Lena's eyes narrow. She twists around to look at Sam, the cogs in her mind already turning.

"Actually, I think I can."

It's true that no spell exists to take feelings away. Once it's taken root, her mother's book says, love is a stubborn weed. It grows in all the cracks of the heart until it's taken over every inch of fertile ground. But what do exist are spells to give love shape – to mould it, direct it, make it brighter. To call for it to find you. Such spells are complicated, but Lena has always had a natural aptitude.

"So to keep yourself from falling in love, you're…casting a spell to…find love?" Sam says, her face twisted up in confusion as Lena wanders the garden gathering the herbs she needs. It's dark outside, and they're darting between shadows – the garden is here for the kitchen staff to pick fresh ingredients from, and the last time Lillian found her snipping rosemary she was confined to her room for two months.

"I'm calling for a true love," Lena clarifies. "Amas Veritas. I'm binding myself to a person that doesn't exist."

"How do you know they don't exist?"

"They can't. No person can fit all my criteria. And if they don't exist, I can never fall in love with them," Lena says, sifting through her pencil box full of herbs and flora. "I think that's everything I need. Come on."

It's too late for Lillian to be awake, but they tiptoe through the halls anyways until they reach Lena's room. The spell needs open air to work properly, so Lena sets up a circle of lit candles on the balcony, sitting on one side of it while Sam sits on the other playing with one of the lit wicks.

"So who is this impossible love you're calling for?" Sam says, hissing when she doesn't move her finger fast enough to keep from getting singed. "What’s Lena Luthor's soulmate like?"

Lena takes a deep breath, trying to summon the peace and concentration needed for such a complex spell.

"They need to be kind," Lena starts, setting one ingredient after another in the circle. They rustle in the breeze, but don't blow away. Oregano, chamomile, violet. "Marvelously kind. Loyal. And they need to hear my call from a mile away."

"A mile?" Sam says, leaving the candle alone to watch Lena work the spell. Lena has done magic in front of her before, but never anything involving this kind of ritual. "That's pretty demanding,"

"They'll whistle my favourite song," Lena says. A snipping of chamomile. Comfort.

"Which is?"

Lena doesn't answer.

"They're strong. Strong enough to lift…" Lena trails off, thinking. A car? A house? Lena doesn't care necessarily about measurements like that so much as what that strength could do. She wants someone strong enough to keep Lillian away. Strong enough to take her away from here.

"Strong enough to keep me safe," Lena finally decides, adding a clipping of lovage. "They know ten languages. They can hold their breath for 10 minutes. And they can make pancakes in funny shapes. Flip them in the air."

"Okay, that's at least reasonable," Sam says, munching on a few leaves of mint that Lena isn't using.

"They love my favourite pizza toppings."

"And that's asking too much," Sam finishes, tossing the stem over the balcony. "Olives and mushrooms? It's like you're not even a kid."

"They wear glasses," Lena decides in the moment, "but not because they need them to see. And they have blue eyes. The brightest blue eyes in the world."

"I'm more of a brown eyes person," Sam muses. Rather than distracting her, Lena finds that Sam's presence is actually helping her concentrate – keeping her mind happy, rather than dwelling on the anxiety that the idea of such a love brings her.

"And they need a great family," Lena says, her voice cracking a little as she lines up the last few herbs. "A mother who loves them." No, she thinks selfishly as she snaps off an extra piece of lilac – two mothers. Enough to love both of them. "They need to be indestructible. So strong that even a curse can’t take them away."

And finally, the one request that Lena knows will clinch it. She gathers a handful of rose petals, cupping them in her palm.

"Anything else?" Sam drawls.

"Yes," Lena says quietly. She looks up at the sky, the great big empty expanse she's dreamed about escaping to ever since the doors of the Luthor manor first closed behind her. Freedom. "They can touch the stars."

The magic starts to gather as soon as the last requirement is spoken. It swirls around her, lifting the spell's ingredients and floating them around her in a gentle spiral, making the candle flame flicker, before floating skyward. And to her alarm, as she sends the spell into the heavens, Lena feels a slight tug. Like a string tied to her ribcage has been pulled towards the sky, urging her somewhere else.

But it passes quickly. The string dissipates, her call to the sky fading, and Lena knows the spell didn’t work. Couldn’t have.

Perfect people don’t exist.

#practical magic au #I’m hoping posting some of it will KICK MY ASS INTO GEAR

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imagine-lcorp · 4 months

Text

Cure For Me (One Shot)

Request

Could you do an imagine where the reader is sick and Lena takes care of her? Like the reader feels bad about needing help but Lena reassures her that that’s what she’s there for? Just fluffy lol. Thank you!!!!

A/N: Hi, guys!! Here comes another request, as always thank you for your patience and for hanging (so long) here with me. This one was particularly fun, I tend to get sick a lot so this one was actually pretty nice too. Anyways, enjoooy and let me know what you think :)

Lena Luthor x Fem!R//Word Count: 2,105

-------------------------------------------------------

Loud knocks on your door woke you up from your fever dream.

You opened your eyes, grunting as you felt your body ache, and turned to look at the digital clock on the nightstand next to your bed. By squinting your eyes you managed to make it was a bit pass midday and wondered who was at your door at such unfortunate time. You had been feeling sick since last night. It was probably something you ate, although you couldn't remember eating anything bad or spoiled. Your stomach was hurting, accompanied with nausea and a fever that didn't go away despite the couple of pills you had downed before going to bed, hoping they would make you feel better the next day. You lifted your covers with heavy arms and tried to sit on your bed, doing it as slowly as possible as you realized you were feeling the same.

You heard the knocking again and sighed as you left the bed to answer the door. However, the face that greeted you at the door was one you didn't expect.

"Hi!" Lena smiled widely as you swung the door open but soon her expression changed to one of worry as she noticed you were paler than milk. "(Y/N)?"

"Hey." You managed to say with a short breath and a little smile as her hands raised to cup your face. "What are y-"

"Oh my god, you're burning." She put the palm of her hand on your forehead and looked at you with a frown. "Have you been like this the whole morning?"

"Uh…" You let her take your hand to drag you inside your own apartment and frowned a bit in confusion after the door closed behind you. "Lena, what are you doing here?"

"Well, after you texted us yesterday you were feeling a bit sick, I wanted to check upon you." She took you by the shoulders and sat you carefully on the couch.

She had been worried all morning, trying to text you. If Lena knew something about you was that you would rather be all though about it than ask for help until it got worse. So, when you didn't answer, she started to fear you would retreat to your apartment, as you usually did, until all your discomforts magically passed.

You sat with a little thud, letting your body fall on it with all your weight and groaned. You complained a bit as she put two fingers on your wrist to check your pulse and looked at you intently from eye to eye.

"Have you eaten?"

"No." You observed as she did her own check up. "I don't have the stomach right now."

"Since when haven't you eaten?"

"Lena, what are you doing?" You took her hands in yours and sighed. "I'm sure it's just a stomachache. You don't have to worry. It will pass."

The look Lena gave you next made you reconsider your whole life. You had never felt as scowled as you felt right there, with Lena looking you with severe eyes, her tilted head and a raised eyebrow.

"(Y/N), you're looking like the dead. You have a fever, haven't eating since God knows when, you look in pain. So, I'm calling you a doctor right now."

You shut your mouth after that. No amount of complaining was going to make Lena change her opinion and you knew her too well to even try it. However, you felt bad about it and tried it anyways. She didn't have to waste the day with you while feeling like that.

"Lena, you really don't have to." You said as she took her phone out of her purse. "I took a few pills yesterday, and I'll stay te rest of the day in bed. I'll be fine."

"Tell me that once you get some color back, darling." She smiled softly at you and talked to the phone once the call connected. "Alright, thank you, yes, I'll send you the address."

You shivered a bit, having spent so much time out of the cover of your bed was making you feel cold.

"The doctor will be here in twenty minutes." She said as she noticed the subtle tremble of your body. "C'mon, I'll take you to bed."

She put her phone on the back pocket of her jeans and took your hands in hers once again.

"Oh, to hear those words in another circumstances…" You sighed heavily with a little smile as she pulled you up and let you lean against her for support.

She chuckled. "Try to get better and then we'll talk about it."

You reached your bedroom and walked you to the edge of the bed, making sure you didn't fall. You looked weak and by the little grimaces your face was making she knew you felt more pain than you had initially let her see. She pushed you down slowly, arranging your pillows below your head and throwing the bed sheets above you. You shivered with the slight breeze fo them and closed your eyes.

"Stay here and don't move too much." Lena caressed your forehead with her fingertips and moved from the edge of your bed. In a movement that was quicker than you thought you were capable of, you grabbed her wrist. She was about to turn when she came to a halt as she felt your grip on her and turned to look at you.

"Thank you." You said in a low voice and a smile on your lips.

She returned the smile and placed a quick kiss on your forehead. You let go of her after that and shifted to a more comfortable position on your bed as you watched her leave your room.

The was a warm felling in your chest, despite the cold in your body. Against your first complaints about it, you were grateful Lena had decided to come see you. You couldn't imagine having to spend the whole day alone with the pain and although you had thought about seeing a doctor later in the evening, you didn't think you had the strength to get out of your house. In all honestly, you would have been glad to roll in to a ball and sleep, at least for the day. But Lena, sweet, caring Lena, wasn't going to have any of that.

Minutes later she came into your room once again, carrying a cup of tea in one hand and a bowl with ice and water on the other. You noticed the piece of cloth that hanged from her arm as she left the containers on your nightstand. She took the cloth from her arm, dipped it in the cold water and folded it to put it on your forehead. You shook your head a bit at the contact.

"Sorry, too cold?" She sat on the bed, on the empty space next to you.

"A bit." You hummed with your eyes closed.

"Hang on, it's just while the doctor comes." She pressed the palm of her hand on the cloth and then frowned with worry. "I think it might be an infection."

"Just because you have two PhD's doesn't mean you're an actual doctor, miss Luthor." You joked and smiled a little.

"Lucky for you, otherwise I'd have called an ambulance and sent you to the ICU already." You chuckled but regretted it immediately after feeling pain in your abdomen due to the spasms of your laughter. You could heard her smile when she replied. "You had it coming."

The doctor came and did a whole check up on you. She asked about your eating habits, what you had eating the day before, the pills you had taken to help with the fever and the pain, asked you to sit at the edge of the bed, to open your mouth wide and took your temperature. The doctor did the whole routine and at the end of it gave the reason to Lena.

"Well, it's definitely an infection." The doctor said as she scribbled on her prescription block. "I'm giving you something for the pain and the fever. Try to say hydrated as much as you can, stay away from anything too irritating for your stomach and try to eat food that's easy to digest. I'll write some of what you can and cannot eat."

The doctor smiled at you as she tore the sheet from her block moments later and gave it to Lena.

"Make sure she follows it to the letter and she will be as good as new."

Lena read the note and asked some follow up questions as she escorted the doctor to your door. You waited for Lena as you massaged your forehead with a hand. You hated being sick.

"I'll go buy these later." Lena entered your room moments later and waved your prescription in her hand. "Seems you will have to be on a diet in the meantime."

You grunted at the thought. "I've to see if there's still anything edible for me in the fridge."

"I'll take care of that too." She left the prescription on your nightstand and put her hands on your shoulders to help you lay back again on the bed. "Don't worry."

"Lena, I can't let you do all that." You raised your hands to her arms, stopping her from pushing you to the bed, and looked at her with sheepish eyes. "You have already done so much. Coming here, calling me a doctor… I'll figure out the rest once I feel better."

"(Y/N), I'm taking care of you." She raised her hands to cup your face and caressed your cheeks with her thumbs. There was so much love and care on her eyes that you almost melted. "Just let me do it, okay?"

"Okay." You nodded without further complaint.

"Good, now go back to bed." She ordered, and you leaned back on the bed with a little groan as she pulled the covers over you. "I'll go get your meds and some food. Don't move."

"Stay with me until I fall asleep?" You pleaded, feeling the sudden impulse of having her with you a little longer.

"I need to get your meds first." She placed the palm of her hand on your forehead. The fever had gone down a bit but not enough for her liking.

"Please?" You lifted your hand to take hers in yours and placed them over your chest. "Or I might just start jumping on the bed."

She rolled her eyes playfully at you and lifted one knee to join you in the bed. "Just until you fall asleep."

"Yes, ma'am." You smiled and moved slowly to the side, making space for her.

She laid then next to you, being careful not to push or crush you with her own body weight. It took you a couple of moments to settle into a comfortable position, where you had an arm below Lena and she rested her head on your shoulder, with a hand gently placed above your stomach. She moved the palm of her hand in circles, stroking with care your abdomen from above the covers.

The soothing movement, her embrace, the warmth of her body against you felt like a cure to all your aches and troubles. You couldn't imagine anyone else do what she was doing for you. Hell, you couldn't even imagine having to share those moments with anyone that wasn't her, and because of that you were grateful she was by your side.

"I know I already said it but, thank you." You moved your head a bit down to look at her. "I really don't know what I would do without you."

"Curl into a ball and sleep for a month?" Lena mused.

"Oh, I wish." You smiled at her. "But no, this is way better."

"How is this better?" She chuckled.

"'Cause I have you here." You sighed contented and fatigue seemed to finally settle in your bones as you snuggled down, shifting on the bed to rest your chin on her head. "You make everything better."

"You too make everything better, (Y/N)." She whispered as she knew you were asleep right away.

She smiled as a comfortable silence fell over the two of you, where Lena could hear the soft rhythm of your breathing and be comforted by the slow movement of your chest as it went up and down in the same cadence. She let herself drift into the same slumber.

She would have the rest of the day to buy you groceries and your meds, but for now she let herself too enjoy this moment by your side. After all, that's what she was there for.

#lena luthor #lena luthor imagine #lena luthor x reader #lena x reader #lena luthor x you #lena luthor imagines #one shot #request #female reader #fem reader #fem!reader #cure for me

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natalievoncatte · 1 year

Text

Nothing has ever hit Lena like this.

She’s been abducted by aliens. She was almost shotgun married to an alien. Her ex was eaten by nanobots in front of her. She’s been tried to a chair while her brother tried to murder the world’s most beloved hero, and nearly vaporized by a man with a radioactive chunk of another planet for a heart.

Not to mention the mundane stuff. The L-Corp logo in the lobby almost crushing her. Bombs, bullets, blades, being thrown off a balcony, thrown off a roof, left to die in a plane crash.

Almost killed when her brother sent drones to shoot down her helicopter and a golden vision of inhuman beauty came from the sky to save her life.

Of course, that golden vision had tarnished, turned brass. She could be bossy, sanctimonious, paranoid, prone to snapping at Lena one moment… then making her knees weak the next.

Because sometimes, Supergirl wasn’t bossy, sanctimonious, or paranoid. Sometimes she was all dashing grace, with a profoundly frustrating tendency to scoop Lena into her arms and carry her there with surpassing tenderness, as though she were the most precious treasure the alien had ever seen.

Poor Lena’s heart had suffered terribly through all that, yet never skipped a beat.

It skipped now.

Kara looked up from her burger, apropos of nothing. Or, that’s what Lena would have thought a moment ago, before she recognized that scar.

The world spun crazily. Lena grasped the sides of her seat for dear life while alarms and sirens blared in every direction. Smoke coughed noisily from the remains of the turbines that had powered her chopper’s rotor blades. As the world seemed to grow weightless, Lena finally accepted what was happening- the chopper was going to crash. She was going to die.

And then there was a wind.

No, not a wind. A blur of motion, a red and blue streak cutting through the brilliant afternoon light and then a stomach-churning lurch as the falling aircraft just stopped, gently floating to a safe landing on the roof.

With a squeak of tearing metal, she was there. A goddess in primary colors, soft waves of golden hair framing her devastatingly lovely face as she checked the pilot and then turned those arresting blue eyes to Lena and then asked-

“Are you okay? Lena?”

With trembling hands, Lena reached up. Kara froze, a thousand emotions flashing on her face, fear flickering in the oceans of her eyes. They both paused, testing the moment. This was it. They had their choices: Lena could stop, make some excuse. Kara could flinch and offer some gee golly shucks reason to move out of reach and dissemble her way out of it. They could decide not to do this.

Lena did not stop, and Kara did not move. The frames of Kara’s glasses were surprisingly heavy in her grasp as she softly tugged them free and set them aside. Lena raises a hand to Kara’s cheek, ever hesitant quiver of her palm a question. She closed the gap between them on the couch and brought her other arm back up, circling Kara in something that was somehow more intimate than a hug. He best friend sat stone still as Lena worked loose the band that held her hair.

Golden locks spilled about her shoulders, and Lena gasped. She caressed her hand up Kara’s shockingly soft cheek and touched the scar lightly with her thumb.

Lena felt the tears trembling in her own eyes as Kara’s welled with her own. The moment had come; the river was crossed, the decision made.

And yet in this moment there was another one, at once simpler and more profound. Lena’s lip trembled. Anger welled in her chest, burning hot and bright.

It’s not a great question for a Luthor to ask someone in my family.

It twisted in her like venom, burning at her insides, trying to eat through her from the inside out. The fury rose until she thought she’d be sick, and then…

Kara Danvers believes in you.

Take me instead!

I can’t hold both! You have to jump!

I will always protect you.

“It’s you,” Lena whispered. “It’s always been you.”

Before she knew what was happening, Kara drew her forward with surpassing tenderness. Hands that could crack marble gently guided Lena’s weight into Kara’s lap. What had not been meant as an embrace became one, and Lena made her choice.

It was her.

It had always been her.

Noticing small details about them (physically)

#Supercorp #supergirl fanfiction #supercorp fanfic #supergirl #lena luthor #kara danvers #kara x lena #karlena #supergirl fanfic #ficlet #Lena Luthor figures out Supergirl’s identity #seriously she flew here on a bus?#Kara Danvers loves Lena Luthor #Supercorp from a prompt

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somber-sapphic · 10 months

Text

As You Wish

〖Notes: Wow, this should've been done days ago but my period is kicking my ass. Not going to lie I write this purely because it made me feel a little better. ALSO, LENA'S FAVORITE MOVIE BEING 'TITANIC' IS CANON, DON'T COME FOR ME :,)〗

〖Summary: Lena is really bad at being sick.〗

〖Word Count: 3.9k (I maybe went overboard)〗

〖Pairing: Kara x Sick Lena〗

☾Masterlists☽

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Kara bounced over to Lena’s office with a grin on her face and a box of donuts in her hands. It had been months since she had been able to see her best friend what with the overwhelming number of alien attacks on National City and Lena fighting to prove that she was worthy of respect through meeting after painstaking meeting.

But finally, the brunette had a free fifteen minutes and the Kryptonian (while still on call) managed to get the day off both from CatCo and from Supergirl-ing. Both women had been working themselves to the bone for the past several weeks and hadn’t had a whole lot of time to catch up.

Kara had decided that since she knew they both had a bit of time, she would surprise her friend with sugary treats and gossip. She had caught two of her coworkers hooking up in the copier room and was dying to tell someone besides Alex.

The biochemist turned alien hunter hadn’t particularly cared about the workplace drama, she was more focused on not dying. In hindsight, perhaps she shouldn’t have brought it up during an attack, but when wasn’t there an attack lately?

Sometimes she felt as if her presence in the city did more harm than good. Sure, she protected the citizens from danger, but she also knew that she had a large role in drawing potentially dangerous aliens and groups to them.

Shoving the unwelcome thought aside Kara rapped softly on the door to Lena’s office, butterflies in her stomach. She had had a minor crush on the other woman since they had first met but decided to keep her unrequited love to herself. There was no need to ruin such a wonderful friendship over a silly crush.

“Come in,” The rasp that came from the other side of the door could not be called a voice and it made Kara’s heart jump. She’d only ever been sick once before, but she knew what sick people sounded like. Alex had gotten a cold a few months ago and she had sounded as if she had a literal frog stuck in her throat.

She opened the door and poked her head in, a frown crossing her face at the sight before her. Lena was sitting on her couch, laptop on the table in front of her, her shirt and pants rumpled. She was surrounded by used tissues, and an empty box sitting beside her laptop. She was hunched over typing away, shivering violently as her fingers danced across the keys.

“Hey, Kara.” She mumbled, barely glancing up from the screen. Her brilliant green eyes were glassy with fever, and she was sniffling every few seconds, taking a break from her computer only to wipe her nose on her damp sleeve. There was a sheen of sweat on her forehead and her typically immaculate hair was a mess, wispy pieces plastered against her damp skin.

“Oh Lena, you look awful.” The superhero breathed, rushing to her side. She cleared aside a spot on the coffee table and put the box of sugary treats down, her full attention now on assessing Lena’s illness. She didn’t know much about human illness, but this was probably bad.

The blonde slipped her palm over the CEO’s forehead, her frown deepening at the heat rising off of her skin. Lena pushed her away halfheartedly, not looking away from the email that she was writing. It was long, at least five paragraphs, and she was still working going. Kara hadn’t exactly read over her shoulder, but she had seen a few clauses and it was clearly not a friendly message.

“What’s this?” She asked softly, deciding that she should be a little bit worried. The way it was worded sounded almost like Lena was in a battle for her life. The blonde saw tears fill the other woman’s eyes, but she shook her head quickly taking a quick gasp of air.

“N-nothing, just some stuff with Edge. It’s fine. You brought donuts?” The millionaire sniffled, biting her chapped lip. She leaned over and opened the box, peering at the pastries with eyes filled with disinterest. She was simply trying to draw attention away from whatever was going on with the Edge and from her obvious sickness.

“Don’t try to distract me with food. You are sick. Come on, I’m taking you home.” Kara replied, pulling the conversation back on track. They could unpack the issues with Edge later, what was most important was nursing Lena back to health.

“I’m fine Kar, it’s nothing. So, how have you been?” Her argument would’ve been more convincing had it not been for the slight chatter of her teeth and the congestion muddling her words. Her eyes were dull, and her nose was running slightly, it didn’t seem like she noticed.

“Y-you got,” Kara gestured to her own nose, a pang of sympathy racing through her heart. It made her sad to see this wonderful, amazing woman in this state of physical discomfort and she felt so powerless to help. Literal superpowers are no good when you can’t help the people you love.

Lena’s cheeks flushed darker, and she reached for a tissue, her mouth dropping open slightly when she realized that there were none. With a grimace on her face, she brought her sleep up to her dripping appendage and wiped it clean, looking embarrassed.

“’m so sorry about this, my allergies have been—”

“Lena, honey, you’re sick. Let me take you home, I’ll pick up some soup from Noonan’s, we can watch Titanic and you can get some rest. Come on, you aren’t well enough to work right now. You’ve gotta give that big brain of yours a rest.” Kara murmured, the pet name slipping out without her approval. Thankfully, Lena didn’t seem to notice, she was too preoccupied with not crying.

“I appreciate that you care, I really do, but I can’t leave. I have a meeting in five minutes and another right after that. Then there’s the opening of the psych wing at the hospital which I have to be there for.” The brunette broke into a fit of coughing and even without using her super hearing, Kara could hear the crackling in her lungs. That was bad.

“No, you don’t. I’ll have Jess cancel your meetings and someone will go for you to the ward opening at the hospital. They’ll understand, they probably won’t want you there anyway, sickie.” The reporter teased gently, nudging her with an elbow. Lena sniffled pitifully and looked up with teary eyes, a tiny smile appearing on her badly cracked lips.

“Kara, I can’t, thank you for the donuts but you need to go, I have to set up for my meeting.” Damnit, Kara thought she had it with that one. But no, there was no way that the genius was going down without a fight, even if the fight was simply the same thing back and forth.

“Lena Kieran Luthor, I know that you are a busy woman, but right now you need to rest. You need to sleep this off. Just let me help you, please.” Begging. She had resorted to begging. And it worked! Kara watched Lena’s crumbling resolve break as the woman hunched over, hanging her head in regret and shame.

“Okay. Just let me get my things.” She mumbled, sounding defeated. Kara smiled and squeezed her elbow, offering silent comfort.

“Let me take care of it. Can you stand?” The blonde asked, grabbing the waste basket so that she could dispose of the sea of tissues surrounding the CEO. Lena nodded, but didn’t move, just sat there, and stared at her computer, eyes unfocused.

Kara just continued to gather her things, cleaning up the office a bit so that it wouldn’t be an utter disaster when the brunette returned to work. When she was done, she put a hand on Lena’s shoulder, prompting the woman to look up.

“Come on Le, let’s get you home.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Kara absolutely hated cars. They were cramped, too slow, and smelled like other people. If she had a choice, she would have just flown Lena back to her penthouse, but that may have given away the fact that she was an alien superhero who occasionally prevented the city/world from being blown up or overrun. Just maybe.

She had complained under her breath the entire time, pointing out the safety issues while Lena listened dutifully listened, nodding along with the woman’s ridiculous critiques of her very safe vehicle.

The ride back to the penthouse was only twenty minutes, but they were some of the longest twenty minutes of Kara’s life. This was saying a lot considering that she was trapped in the phantom zone for 24 years. At least then she had been comfortably unconscious, unable to consider how terrifying her situation was. She vowed never to enter a vehicle again without her powers. It was far too dangerous.

“Do you think you can walk?” The blonde asked, helping her shivering maybe crush out of the back of the moderately sized limo. Lena nodded silently and stumbled out, a soft groan escaping her lips as her head spun in protest.

“Woah, easy. Come here you, it’s okay.” Kara murmured, wrapping an arm around the brunette’s waist. She looked momentarily shocked but settled into the helpful half embrace. With the woman’s support, they made it inside and Lena found herself realizing just how weak she was. They had walked maybe twenty feet to get over to the elevator and she was panting, her head swimming with exhaustion and fever.

“S’out of order?” The CEO practically whimpered, dread crossing her face. Tears had already started to well up in her eyes while any hope that she had left her. There was no way that she could make it up all of those stairs, even with Kara’s assistance. She already felt like she would pass out if she stood for too much longer.

“Um…do, do you want me to carry you?” Kara asked, sounding a bit flustered. Her cheeks were pink with embarrassment, and she was doing her best to hide the humiliation. As miserable as she looked, Lena was undeniably adorable with that little pout on her lips and those big, beautiful emerald-green eyes.

No, bad Kara. She’s sick, she’s confused, and most important of all she’s your best friend.

“I, Kara…are you…,” Lena paused to look into the blonde’s big blue eyes and felt herself relax. Kara was just so incredibly kind, gentle, and willing to do anything to take care of her loved ones. She sniffled pitifully and nodded, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Um…y-yes please.” She whispered, knowing that there was really nothing else that she could do. She wouldn’t be walking, and it wasn’t like she could sleep in the lobby. This was the only choice that she had.

Kara slipped her bag over her shoulder and very carefully eased Lena into her arms, holding the brunette in a bridal carry. She was alarmed by just how light her friend was, sure she had superpowers, but she made a mental note to remind Lena to eat on a more regular basis. The woman tended to get so caught up in her work that she forgot to practice basic self-care.

The blonde held her breath as she carried Lena up the stairs, feeling every bounce of the CEO’s head against her chest, every small shift in her arms, hearing the way her heartbeat slowed to a reasonable pace as soon as she was settled in her arms. This was all that Kara wanted. She wanted to hold Lena for the rest of her life, she wanted to make her feel safe and protect her from harm.

Lena had all but fallen asleep when they reached the penthouse, nuzzled close to her best friend’s chest and subconsciously trying to get even closer. Kara switched most of the raven-haired woman’s weight to one of her arms as she fiddled with the doorknob, fully expecting to find it locked. A spike of worry dashed through her heart when she found it open.

“Sweetie, do you remember if you locked the door this morning?” She murmured, feeling guilty about waking the woman from what was probably the first nap she’d had in weeks. Lena shook her head slightly, indicating that no, she had not in fact locked her door.

Kara hummed her disapproval but decided that she would save her nagging about safety later. There were so many people out there who wanted to hurt her, she knew better than to leave her door open like that.

Kara sighed quietly and carried the woman inside, her mind racing. Getting her home had been the easy part. Being one who practically never got sick, the blonde wasn’t exactly sure how to help. She didn’t entirely remember what an acceptable human temperature was (somewhere in the 90’s she was pretty sure) and everything she knew about being sick had come from watching Alex as a kid. The worst had been when Alex got chickenpox, the woman had been an absolute nightmare to deal with.

“Okay Le, I’m going to put you down in bed, is that okay?” Lena hummed her assent and Kara very gently set her down on the lavish bed. She then began to remove the brunette’s shoes, figuring that the high heels were absolutely killing her.

“Kara, what are you doing? You can go. I’ll be fine.” The sleepy woman mumbled, her voice a whispery rasp. Every breath crackled in Kara’s ears, a sound that was definitely not supposed to be there. She was beginning to wonder if she should call her sister, she had no clue how to help.

“Not a chance. I’m pretty sure you’ll die if I leave you alone.” The blonde teased, getting a little whine from the sick brunette. She sounded so incredibly pitiful, it broke Kara’s heart a bit. She moved to sit beside her best friend and brushed a few pieces of hair behind her ear, pausing a moment to lay her hand against the woman’s hot forehead. First things first though- Lena needed to get out of her work clothes.

“Can I get you something to wear?” The brunette hummed again, curling in a fetal position on top of the blankets. Kara knew that she needed to work fast, the last thing that she wanted was to need to wake the woman again.

She rifled (carefully) through Lena’s drawers until she found an old, clearly loved MIT sweatshirt. It was so worn that the letters had started to come off, but it was still readable. Kara smiled slightly and set it down on the bed before pulling out a pair of comfy-looking sweatpants.

“Can you change into these for me?” Kara asked, moving to squeeze Lena’s shoulder. With a grunt, she sat up and reached for the articles of clothing, pulling her shirt off before the startled superhero could make it out of the room.

Kara whirled around and closed her eyes, her cheeks flushed bright red with embarrassment. The brunette didn’t even seem to realize what she was doing to her friend and just continued to change, looking at the back of Kara’s head when she was done.

“This is my favorite sweater. I always wear it when I don’t feel good. How’d you know?” She mumbled, sounding dazed and tired. The blonde turned back around and smiled, sitting down beside the sick woman.

“You clearly love it. It looks soft.” That statement seemed to set something off in Lena. Tears welled up in her fever-glazed eyes and she buried her head in her hands as she started to cry. Panic set into Kara’s chest and she sat down on the bed, wringing her hands as she tried to figure out what to do.

“Hey, Lena what’s wrong?” she asked gently, reaching over to put a hand on the woman’s knee. Lena continued to cry into her hands, shaking her head as she tried to stifle her sobs. Her breaths were coming in quick, painful gasps and she was quite literally choking on her tears, coughing hard as she cried.

Taking a risk, the blonde moved right beside her and wrapped an arm around the sobbing woman’s waist, thinking back to the only other time that she’d seen Lena cry. They had sat together for hours, Kara silently holding the brunette as she just let it all out.

Without hesitation the ill genius pressed against her friend’s side, turning her head into Kara’s shoulder.

“What happened? What’s wrong?” She tried again, patting Lena’s back gently to help loosen some of the congestion that seemed to have settled into her lungs.

“N-no one’s ever c-cared this much before.” The brunette managed through her coughs, reaching up to grab a fistful of Kara’s shirt. Her heart absolutely shattered, the alien hugged her tight, pressing her nose against Lena’s hairline. She didn’t mind the snot or the tears, all that mattered was making the woman she loved, maybe, kinda, that was not important, feel like someone was there for her.

“Oh Rao, Lena. I’m right here. I’ve got you, I’m here. I care, I promise that I do. We’re going to get you feel better, okay? I’ve got you.” She soothed, beginning to rock Lena in her arms. She shoved off the tangle of blankets and situated herself so that she had the beautiful brunette positioned in her lap.

She continued to talk softly to the distressed woman, saying absolutely nothing in her words. She just promised safety and love, relaxing as Lena’s breathing calmed and her heartbeat slowed. The loud, gut-wrenching sobs turned to weak, congested hiccups. It took probably twenty minutes, but the CEO finally went from awake and dysregulated to sniffing in her sleep, still curled up in Kara’s lap.

They stayed like that for a while, Kara simply didn’t have the heart to move her even long after she’d gotten bored. If she’d had her laptop on her, she probably could’ve gotten some editing done, but she just couldn’t risk waking the sick woman. All that she wanted was to help Lena get better. If that meant sitting in an uncomfortable position for a few hours, it would be okay.

After another twenty minutes, the brunette was still fast asleep. Kara very gently eased her back down onto the covers, halting when she heard a tiny whimper from the sick woman. She waited another few seconds before continuing to set her down, smiling when Lena was fully curled up against the covers.

The blonde slipped out of the room and grabbed a blanket from the couch, returning to drape it over her sick friend. They would worry about getting her under the duvet later, for now, that would do. She then grabbed her phone and texted her sister.

Kara: Lena’s sick and I don’t know what to do.

Alex: Sick? What kind of sick? I need some more details here Kar.

Kara huffed her frustration and turned to the wheezing brunette as she thought of a response.

Kara: I don’t know! She feels really hot, she’s coughing, sneezing, she looks awful. Just help me!

Alex: Okay, breathe. It sounds like she just has the flu. Give her some fluids, and have her take medicine, but most importantly she needs sleep. She’ll be fine.

Kara: What kind of medicine?

She could practically hear Alex sighing over the phone. She knew that her sister was busy, but this was incredibly important.

Alex: Look, see what she has in the medicine cabinet and give her that. She’ll be okay Kara; humans are built to deal with this. Take a deep breath. Call me when she wakes up and I’ll talk to her.

The blonde did as directed, taking a deep breath in and holding it for a few seconds to calm herself down as she reminded herself of what Alex had said. Humans were used to this. Humans could handle this. It would be fine. Lena would be fine, just fine.

Now that she had freed herself from Lena’s grasp she had managed to retrieve her laptop from her bag. The blonde pulled out her machine and began to work on her latest article, which was surprisingly about the CEO.

It was just a stupid puff piece thanking Lena for her latest donation to the city -a whole new hospital- but the woman really needed the good press. So much hate surrounded her name, and people couldn’t seem to comprehend all of the good that she did.

She had gotten so into her work that she didn’t realize how much time had gone by until she saw Lena staring up at her, a little smile on her cracked lips.

“Hey, you, how are you feeling?”

“Why are you still here? Aren’t you sposta be doing something?” The brunette asked, completely ignoring Kara’s original question. Judging by the way that she was speaking, speech slurred slightly, the answer was ‘not great’.

Immediately assuming that the question was based on catching the illness (that’s what most humans worried about in this situation, right?) she framed her answer as what she figured Lena would want to hear.

“I won’t get sick, but I’ll go if you want me to,” Kara said softly, propping herself up on one elbow. The woman laying in her arms smirked and opened one beautiful green eye.

“Well duh. Aliens can’t get people viruses.” Well, that wasn’t what the blonde had been expecting. She froze, her mouth dropping open as she fumbled for what to say. How had this even happened? She had been so careful. Right?

“I-uh, I’m not sure what, what you’re talking about. I just have a really good immune system and I got my flu shot and I don’t really get sick and—”

“’member one of the first times we interacted? I asked ‘f you need a parking ticket validated. You,” Lena paused to giggle, “said you ‘flew here on a bus’. Dumbest excuse I’ve ever heard. Dummy.” The grin on the CEO’s face was enough to make Kara burst into laughter. She had hoped that she had played it off well, but clearly, she hadn’t been as smooth as she thought.

“Are…you okay with it?”

“Mhm. Can’t really be mad, you saved didn’ let anyone kill me. Please don’t go.” The slightly delerious Lena was already falling asleep again, cuddling against Kara’s chest. It was pretty clear that she wasn’t interested in moving, and really just wanted to be held.

“I’m not going anywhere. But let’s get some medicine in you, see if we can lower that fever a bit.” She was pretty sure there would need to be more conversation about this later, but for now, Kara was perfectly happy to gloss over the subject of her DNA.

“Later? I wanna sleep.” If it were anyone else and if they were wearing any other expression, Lena literally looked like a cute, pouting puppy, Kara would’ve demanded that the medicine be consumed. But she just didn’t have the heart to argue with the woman.

“As you wish.” The blonde said softly, pressing an incredibly soft kiss to the top of her best friend’s head. The woman let out a contented sigh and curled up closer, tucking her head right under Kara’s chin. Maybe this illness would be the start of something beautiful.

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trashpandato · 8 months

Text

The sun in your eyes made some of the lies worth believing

When Lex slips out of her grip hundreds of feet above Shelley Island and plummets, Kara knows better than to just assume that this is it. This is Lex Luthor. She’s not sure what trick he might have up his sleeve, but she is sure that he has a plan for his escape, so she dives to follow. She can see the moment something impacts with the ground, but still, she’s convinced that he’s managed to disappear before that happened, so she continues her search.

“Alex! I lost him. We need to find him.”

The comms system crackles a little but Alex comes through loud and clear:

“He’s gotta be dead. There was a mini explosion when he hit the ground.”

“I don’t think he is, but if you’re right, I want to see the body.”

Alex tries to argue, but Kara won’t have it. They’ve been on the back foot for so long while fighting Lex, she knows this would have been too easy.

They search the impact site. There’s a small crater, there are pieces of Lex’s warsuit, but it’s impossible to know if Lex is dead until they’ve done a thorough analysis of the debris. Kara is about to call for Brainy’s help to speed up the process when she hears it:

Lena’s heartbeat.

It’s skyrocketing. Kara freezes for a second to listen more closely, to locate Lena, and then she’s off, briefly yelling into the comms device that she needs to find Lena.

When she lands, she’s at a cabin of sorts. It blends in with the environment and Kara thinks she might be in the wrong place. Nothing here looks suspicious. But then she hears voices and Lena’s short, shallow breaths. She wants to rush towards the sounds, to make sure Lena is safe, but she’s frozen in her spot when she hears Lex say it.

“Kara Danvers is Supergirl.”

He sounds weak, the words are gasps more than anything else but to Kara, they are the sounds of a dying world. She stops breathing, her limbs suddenly feel leaden. She wants to burst into the cabin, but she can’t move. She needs to see Lena. She needs to explain. Suddenly, she feels sick to her stomach. Kara knows she should have told Lena long ago, but the fact that it’s Lex in the end who shares her secret is too much. Images of Lena’s face flash through her mind as she imagines the shock and pain Lena must be feeling in that very moment.

But then Lena’s voice comes through, steady and calm.

“I know.”

It’s followed by the sound of one solitary gunshot, and then silence.

Kara takes a steadying breath and then rushes into the cabin. Inside, she finds Lena, gun in hand, staring down at Lex’s slumped body. A quick x-ray confirms no vital signs. He’s dead. Kara looks up and takes in the room around her. There are several monitors showing a video, a collection of images of Kara using her powers: the day Mercy Graves attacked, then in Kaznia. It’s dizzying to watch and Kara wonders how Lex got this footage in the first place, but then she remembers Lena’s words. Lena knows.

“Lena.”

Her back is still turned to Kara and she flinches a little at the sound of her voice but she doesn’t turn around, not right away. Lena’s hands are shaking, her heartbeat is almost violently loud in the small room.

Kara isn’t sure what to say. She wants to comfort Lena, hug her, make sure she’s okay, but she’s not sure what Lena needs right now. So she waits.

“You all really think I’m stupid,” Lena scoffs, her gaze still fixed on her brother, “that I didn’t see through the world’s worst disguise with ease.”

Kara winces. She knows others have pointed out that glasses and a ponytail aren’t enough to hide who she really is. Alex makes fun of her for it regularly. But hearing Lena say it, hearing the disdain in her voice as she spits out those words, makes Kara’s stomach clench.

“How long have you known?” Kara’s not even sure she wants to hear the answer.

The question finally makes Lena turn around, and it’s better than only seeing her back but Kara swallows hard when Lena locks eyes with her.

“Definitively? Since that day you saved me when I was pushed off the balcony. Your story about Supergril and Kara Danvers having coffee when I called was a little too convenient. But I had my suspicions since you flew to my office, on a bus.”

Kara grimaces. She’s never been particularly good at coming up with excuses around Lena.

“Lena. I’m so sorry.”

Kara wants to apologize, to explain, but Lena cuts her off.

“I understand why you didn’t tell me.”

And that, Kara isn’t sure what to do with that.

“You…you do?”

“I can’t say that I understand entirely why you felt the need to keep up the charades for as long as you have. But I get that you couldn’t trust me. Not really.”

“No! Lena, that’s not why,” Kara starts, her voice taking on a frantic note. She needs Lena to know that this was never about trust.

Lena lets out a harsh huff, half-turns her body towards where Lex is still slumped over in his chair and waves her hands around at the room.

“Kara, come on. I’m a Luthor. Both my mother and my brother have hurt you, multiple times, have tried to kill you and your family. I don’t blame you. I get it. Hell, I doubt myself several times a day, so of course you would, too.”

Kara shakes her head. She takes a step towards Lena and Lena stiffens but doesn’t retreat.

“That’s not why. I mean, maybe at the very beginning that was a consideration, but you’ve shown me over and over again that I can trust you. And I do!”

Lena frowns. Her head tilts slightly like it often does when she is trying to solve a problem, a puzzle, but where Kara usually finds an open, curious expression, Lena looks guarded.

“Then why?”

Kara wants to tell her that she did it to protect Lena. Images of Alex trapped in a tank rapidly filling with water flash through her mind and she shudders. There have been too many moments when people close to Kara have been in danger because of her secret.

But this is Lena, who fends off several assassination attempts a year, who is in danger so much already but somehow manages to keep going, to protect herself and others over and over again. Not wanting to add yet another target on her back might have been one motivation for Kara, but it has never been the main driver for keeping Lena in the dark.

Kara’s real reason has always been more selfish.

“Because I liked being Kara with you. Just Kara. Not a Superhero who is expected to save the day, every day, not an alien refugee who watched her world die in front of her eyes. Just Kara, who loves watching silly rom coms with you, who refuses to try your kale salads…who is your friend.”

A thought pops into Kara’s head then, a question that she’s almost too terrified to ask.

“Are we still friends?”

Lena shifts her weight a little, straightens her posture and raises an eyebrow. Kara has seen Lena do this many times, usually at work, when she’s trying to gain the upper hand in an uncomfortable conversation.

“I don’t know. Are we?”

The question hits Kara right in her chest, and she almost feels winded. She knows she deserves it, deserves whatever anger Lena might feel towards her for lying for so long, but it still hurts to hear that Lena is questioning the very foundation of their connection.

“Of course,” the words rush out of Kara’s mouth in a panic, “I mean, I hope we still are? I would understand if you, um, if you need some time to, to decide if you still want to be. Friends, I mean.”

Lena sighs then. She sounds tired.

“I don’t think I’m the one who needs to decide that, Kara. Look around,” Lena pauses and looks over her shoulder at Lex. “I’ve made it pretty clear where my loyalties lie, don’t you think?”

Kara’s thoughts are racing. She tries to find the right words to say, to explain that she trusts Lena, she really does, but all she can see is that Lena is trying to blink back a few tears and she wants to sweep her into a hug but she feels frozen in place.

After a moment of silence between them, Lena clears her throat.

“Right. Well. You should probably call Alex and tell her about this,” she waves around the room again. “I’m sure you’ll both want to get rid of the video and any other evidence Lex might have kept here about your identity before you call the authorities about him.”

“Lena,” Kara tries to walk towards her but this time Lena does step back.

“I’m going to go. When you’re done here, if Alex thinks I should turn myself in or give an official statement or something, you know where to find me.”

“What?” Kara’s brows are furrowed. She’s not sure why Lena would turn herself in.

“I shot him. With intent to kill. Pretty sure that no matter what he’s done, that’s still illegal, so…”

Kara nods. She can barely breathe. Lex is dead, and Lena is the one who shot him, willing to face whatever consequences that might follow, and she did it for Kara. The full extent of it all makes Kara feel dizzy.

Lena turns towards the door and takes several steps before she stops.

“And Kara?”

“Yeah?”

“What happens now, moving forward, it’s up to you. It’s always been up to you. The only thing I ask is that you’ll be honest when you tell me what you’ve decided. Don’t,” Lena warns, “don’t insult my intelligence again.”

“Okay,” Kara nods again, “I promise.”

Dealing with the cabin ends up taking the better part of two days. Brainy scans the computers and finds a couple of encrypted backup servers that hold copies of the video Lex showed Lena, along with the source materials. Once found, he erases any trace of it and any trace that anyone accessed or modified content on the servers. They dismantle the tech itself and strip the cabin to its bare bones to ensure that no other evidence of Lex’s machinations remains.

As for Lex himself, Alex is shocked when she arrives and hears from Kara what happened.

“Lena killed him? Just like that?”

“I’m sure it wasn’t just like that, Alex. He showed his cards, that he knew my identity and was willing to expose it for personal gain.”

“So she did it for you?”

Kara pauses, replaying her conversation with Lena in her mind.

“She’s always done everything she could for me. She’s saved my life so many times. She’s saved yours, too. She’s always been there for us, for our friends, for the city.”

Alex huffs. “You’ve both been there for each other many times.”

“I don’t think so, Alex. I mean, sure, I’ve saved her life a couple of times, but don’t you see? She’s always done all these things for us, for me. And all this time, I was lying to her.”

“You had to, Kara.”

Kara shakes her head vigorously. “I didn’t. Maybe for the first month or two, sure. But after that? She’s proven so many times that we can trust her, that when push comes to shove, she’ll put our safety above her own interests. And I lied. I pretended. And all this time she knew. Rao, I don’t even know how she listened to my stupid excuses for when I had to run off to deal with the next emergency and just…rolled with it.”

Kara sinks down onto a large box that’s filled with all kinds of Lex’s tech from the cabin and buries her face in her hands.

“Alex, I messed up. You should have seen the way she looked at me. She wasn’t angry, not really. But she doubts our friendship, and I have given her every reason to think that I haven’t been fully committed to it.”

Kara feels Alex’s arms wrap around her in an awkward side hug.

“Hey. You did what you felt you had to do. You had your reasons, and I’m sure it hasn’t been fun for her to be kept at arm’s length, but you can change that now. You get to show her you’re all in.”

“How?” Kara asks, her tone almost desperate.

“You’ll think of something. You know Lena better than anyone.”

Kara sighs. “Yeah, okay.”

Kara ends up keeping her distance from Lena for the better part of two weeks. At first, it’s just a couple of days, and Kara can justify it with all the work they have to do to dismantle Lex’s various hiding places, to make sure he doesn’t have any more information on Kara that can fall into the wrong hands. But then, days turn into a week, one week turns into two and Kara no longer has any real excuse for not going to see Lena. It’s just that she doesn’t know what to say, not yet.

Nia finds her hanging around at the Tower one evening. She throws herself on the couch next to Kara so forcefully that Kara is sure she hears the frame crack slightly. But before she can chastise Nia for jeopardizing the structural integrity of the furniture in their place of work, the other woman claps a hand against Kara’s thigh.

“You really have to stop moping. It’s messing up the vibes in this place.”

“What? What vibes?”

“You know, the ones where we all work together as a team of Superfriends? Who have each other’s backs even when the world is about to end?”

Kara lets out a frustrated huff but doesn’t respond.

“Just talk to her,” Nia says. “Because honestly, this is killing me. I want Lena back. And so does Brainy. And I’m sure Alex does, too, in her own way.”

“I’m not keeping you from reaching out to her,” Kara snaps. She’s pretty sure that Nia is perfectly capable of sending Lena a text.

“Dude. You know the only reason Lena pulled away from all of us is because you lied to her, and by extension we all did, too. But she’s waiting for you to make a move here, to show her how you want to proceed. And until you do that, the rest of us are sort of, well, background noise.”

Kara disagrees. “No, you’re not. You have your own relationship with Lena, you all do. You can go and tell her that you’re sorry for lying, that you did it for me. I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to accept that.”

“Sure. And then what do I do when Lena inevitably asks me about you and why you haven’t called her yet? Do I lie again by not telling her that you’re sitting here like a lovesick puppy because you can’t admit that you have feelings for her?”

Kara’s head snaps up and for a brief moment she has to focus on controlling her heat vision when she glares at Nia.

“What?”

“Oh come on, Kara. I’m not blind.”

“I don’t know what you’re referring to. We’re friends. Or, well, at least I hope we still are.”

Nia sighs and shifts her body so she can look at Kara more directly.

“You and I are friends, right?”

“Um, of course. Why do you even ask?”

“Because you sure as hell don’t look at me the way you look at Lena.”

Kara squirms in her spot. She wants to end this conversation. In fact, she wants to go back to a time where they never have this conversation in the first place.

“Nia,” she sighs, hoping her tone lets her know to drop it.

But Nia is undeterred.

“Kara. As your friend, I’m going to say this once and only once: tell her how you feel. Sure, things right now are…tricky between the two of you. She knows you lied, and she’s wondering whether you were ever really friends at all. But that means the door is open to redefine what you two are. Show her you trust her, that you care about her, as more than a friend.”

Kara wants to deflect, to tell Nia she’s on the wrong track, but something about the way Nia pins her in place with a heavy look makes Kara deflate.

“But what if that’s not what she wants? I can’t lose her, Nia. It’s safer if I just go and apologize to her profusely and try to mend our friendship and that’s that.”

“She’s not stupid, Kara. In fact, you said she explicitly told you not to insult her intelligence again. If you pretend that all you want to be is friends but you keep making heart eyes at her every opportunity you get, she’ll know that you’re still lying to her. Just not about secretly being a superhero this time.”

Kara rubs her hand across her face and lets out a frustrated sigh. She knows Nia is right about Kara owing Lena the truth, all of it. She’s just not sure if she is strong enough to risk it.

“You’re right,” she says after a moment, sounding defeated. “I just…I’m terrified.”

At that, Nia slips one of her long arms around Kara and pulls her against herself.

“I know. But hey, you’re Supergirl. You do scary stuff all the time. You can do this, too. You owe it to her, and to yourself.”

Kara sags against her on the couch. Nia is right. She can do this. But right now, she simply lets herself be held for a moment.

It takes another day full of frantic pacing, stress-eating three dozen donuts and a box of chocolates that Alex informs her “were for Kelly, thank you very much” before Kara plucks up the courage to send off a text that has set in her app as a draft for way too long now.

KD: Can we talk?

Lena’s reply isn’t immediate, and Kara can’t tell if that’s deliberate or if Lena is simply too busy dealing with the aftermath of Lex’s death. Alex didn’t think Lena should take public responsibility for it, so they had created a cover story to explain that he had died in a shootout with federal agents who were trying to apprehend him. The story allowed Lena to officially take over Luthor Corp and Kara has seen through media reports just how much work this has been for Lena.

When Lena’s text comes in later that afternoon, it’s both a relief and a source of worry.

LL: You know where to find me

Kara reads and re-reads the text more times than she can count. She knows it’s hard to pick up on tone over text, especially one so short, but Lena sounds guarded, defensive, which is not a great place to start for the conversation Kara knows they need to have. On the other hand, Lena is still talking to her, inviting her to find her, so at least that means she’s open to hearing Kara out.

She spends the next three hours obsessing over Lena’s text and over what she wants to say to her. Kara knows she has to apologize for lying, for keeping Lena at arm’s length for so long. But she also wants to know why Lena never told her that she knew, that she has been playing along for years. With her stomach in knots and her thoughts pinging around in circles, she decides to talk to Alex first. She needs some outside perspective before she can have this conversation with Lena.

But when she makes her way over to her sister’s place, Alex isn’t home.

“Kara, hi,” Kelly says with a warm smile as she steps aside to let Kara in. “Come on in.”

“Um, hi. Is, um, I need to talk to Alex.”

Kara follows Kelly as she leads them both into the kitchen.

“She’s not here. She took Esme out for ice cream. A little bonding time after they had a bit of a stand-off this morning over what counts as appropriate breakfast food.”

“Oh. Okay. I’m, that’s good. I’m glad they’re doing that.”

Kara stumbles over her words and looks down at her feet. She really needs to talk to her sister, but she also doesn’t want to intrude on their family moments. She knows how much being a mom means to Alex, and how hard it is with their jobs to spend quality time with loved ones. Kara scuffs her toe against the tile floor a little as she contemplates her options.

Kelly’s voice pulls Kara out of her thoughts.

“How about I make us some tea and you tell me what’s bothering you. Maybe I can help?”

Kara hesitates.

“Oh. Um. I don’t want to keep you from anything important.”

Kelly just smiles and fills the kettle with water.

“You’re important, Kara. You know that, right?”

Kelly’s soft voice is soothing, and for the first time since receiving Lena’s text, Kara feels her shoulders relax a little.

“Is this about Lena?” Kelly probes, and before Kara even thinks about whether or not she wants to have this conversation with her, she nods.

“Yeah. I, um, I want to talk to her. Need to talk to her. But I’m terrified and I don’t know where to start.”

Kelly hums and plops two tea bags into their mugs as she waits for the water to boil.

“What is it you’re most worried about?”

Kara thinks it’s deliberate that Kelly isn’t looking at her in that moment, that she appears focussed on the task of making them tea. She wonders if this is a tactic she uses with Alex as well.

“Honestly, I’m not even sure. I mean, I spent years worrying about what would happen if she ever found out who I am. I was so sure there’d be a, um, a big confrontation. A fight. That I would lose her. It’s part of why I kept it from her for so long.”

Kelly hums but doesn’t say anything, so Kara continues.

“But now I know that she knows. That she’s known all along, and she’s still, I mean, she’s here, she never left. So my fear about telling her was unfounded all this time, only I didn’t know. And I don’t know what to do with that.”

“It sounds like you feel caught off guard. And that’s understandable. You only just found out that something that was foundational in your relationship with Lena wasn’t the same for her at all. That would be pretty disorienting.”

“Yes!” Kara bursts out, but then she softens her next words. “I mean, it feels weird. I’m the one who lied to her, so it’s not like I can complain about her not telling me that she knew.”

Now Kelly does turn to look at Kara.

“You could. Look, I think the most important thing for both of you moving forward is that you find a way to be on the same page. And honesty is going to be a key piece of that. Not just telling her who you are, officially, but I think you should tell her that it’s confusing for you that she’s known all along and never said anything. I’m sure she’s had her reasons, just like you had yours. Hear her out, don’t hide what you feel just because you feel guilty about keeping her in the dark.”

Kelly hands Kara her mug and the immediate heat she feels through her hands is comforting.

“But what if she pulls away now? What if telling her how I feel, um, about everything, is the thing that makes her leave?”

“You can’t control what other people do. All you can do is show her what you want things to look like going forward. But Kara,” Kelly pauses and waits for Kara to look up from her mug, “I think Lena has shown you for years what she wants. That she’s willing to work with whatever you’re willing to give her. It can’t have been easy, knowing but watching you keep her at a distance, but her commitment to you has never waivered.”

“I know,” Kara sighs. “I know.”

Kara’s gaze drifts down to her mug again. Kelly is right. Lena has been there for Kara all along, so maybe it doesn’t matter that they weren’t able to be completely honest with each other in the past. Maybe all that matters is that they’ve been here for each other despite it all.

Kara’s head snaps up when she feels a warm hand on her elbow.

“Just talk to her. Be honest with her and with yourself and tell her what you want from her moving forward.”

Kara nods. “I will. Thank you, Kelly.”

Kara leaves but still doesn’t go to Lena immediately. Kelly’s words echo in her ears. Tell her what you want from her. And then there’s what Nia said, and Kara can’t deny it. She does want things to change between her and Lena. She wants more, has for a long time.

It’s late when Kara finally finds herself in front of a familiar door. She decided against the balcony, not wanting Lena to feel ambushed. Being here now, her hands poised to knock, makes Kara feel jittery and unsure. She takes a few deep breaths and knocks.

It doesn’t take long for Lena to open the door, and she doesn’t look surprised to see Kara either, even though it’s been hours since Kara texted her and weeks since they last saw each other. Lena greets her with a quick nod and turns around to walk back into her penthouse, leaving Kara to trail after her. And after a second of stunned silence, Kara does. When she makes it fully inside, she watches Lena set a kettle on the stove and turn it on.

“Tea,” Lena says, her voice about as neutral as Kara has ever heard it. But then she finally turns around, flicks her gaze up to meet Kara’s and asks: “Would you like some?”

“Uh. Sure. That. Yes, that would be nice.”

Lena nods and continues prepping the tea. It’s clear that she’s looking for something to do, to fill the space between them, and Kara can relate.

“How have you been?” Kara says, and she knows this is a weird thing to ask as soon as the words leave her mouth, but she needs to break this tension between them somehow.

“Oh, you know. Kind of busy dealing with the fact that I murdered my own brother and then took over his company.”

Kara grimaces. “Right. I can imagine that’s been…a lot. How are you, how are you holding up?”

Lena stops fiddling with the tea mugs then and leans back against her kitchen counter, arms crossed in front of her chest.

“Is that what you’re here to talk about? My stress level?”

“Um, not really. I mean, I do want to know how you are doing, but, um,” Kara starts but cuts herself off.

She’s in the middle of trying to shove her hands into her pockets when she realizes that the pants she is wearing tonight don’t have any pockets, so her arms fall down awkwardly at her side and she lets out a frustrated huff.

Not a great start.

But then there’s a twitch of a smile tugging at Lena’s lips and in that moment, Kara’s frustration shifts into pure adoration for the woman in front of her.

“You know, I had this whole speech prepared, in my head,” she begins again. “It was a good one, too. But now that I’m here, all I want is to, um, can I hug you?”

And Lena’s eyebrows flick up at that but she nods and Kara doesn’t hesitate. She’s around the kitchen island in a flash and then carefully but firmly pulls Lena against her, loops her arms around her back and holds tight.

Kara has missed this. She’s always been touchy with Lena, has always tried to express her admiration and love with little touches and big hugs. These last few weeks without her have felt cold and confusing, but being here now, having Lena in her arms again, reaffirms Kara’s conviction to make things right.

She keeps her voice low for her next words.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Lena. I never should have lied to you for so long.”

She feels Lena stiffen a little but she continues:

“I can’t even really explain why I kept the lie going for so long. Like I said, at first it was because I didn’t really know you, but then, I don’t know, it just, it got away from me. There were so many moments when I wanted to tell you, but I always chickened out. I didn’t want to lose you.”

Slowly, she eases the hold she has on Lena and leans back but keeps her hands on Lena’s arms, unwilling to break contact.

“I know it wasn’t fair to you. And you have every right to be angry.”

“I’m not angry,” Lena interrupts, but her tone isn’t cutting or sharp like Kara would have expected. Instead, her voice is quiet. “I, maybe I was, at first. It wasn’t fun to be kept at a distance, to watch you come up with really bad excuses to cover up your rapid exits from our lunches.”

Kara grimaces at that. She’s always felt bad about those, always worried about Lena thinking that Kara didn’t want to spend time with her.

“But I understand why you kept this part of yourself hidden, Kara. I told you. I know who I am, who my family is. I get it. I’m not angry.”

“But I made you doubt our friendship,” Kara adds, and it’s not a question.

It’s then that Lena extricates herself a little and steps back towards the kettle. She pulls it off the stove and pours hot water into two mugs sitting next to it on the counter. With her back to Kara, she responds.

“I don’t know what to think anymore. It’s been, it’s been so confusing for so long. One minute, you’re there, and so kind and gentle and more supportive than anyone has ever been in my life. And maybe it’s because I spent so long without that, without genuine…without anyone who would defend me and check on me and bring me lunch knowing how bad I am at remembering to eat. For a long time I thought we had…something. But then you would rush out the door for some emergency and it always felt like a bucket of cold water. Knowing that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me. So I don’t know. I don’t know if this,” Lena turns around then and waves a hand between them, “if this is something or if I’ve simply been so starved for affection that I imagined it and it was never there in the first place.”

The confession breaks something in Kara. She can see now how Lena has spent years teetering back and forth, torn between the mixed signals she was getting from Kara. Thinking about how confusing that must have been, especially for someone like Lena, who’s had to fight tooth and nail for every scrap of love in her life, makes Kara’s eyes sting.

“Lena,” she whispers and takes a careful step towards her again, “you didn’t imagine anything. There was always something there.” She loops her hands around Lena’s wrists, trying to ground them both. “There still is.”

Lena’s eyes are locked with Kara’s and for a moment she doesn’t say anything at all. It’s like she’s trying to read Kara’s thoughts, to make sure that the words are true this time. When it’s clear that Lena isn’t going to say anything for now, Kara presses on.

“Why didn’t you tell me? That you knew?”

Lena’s expression is still a little guarded. Kara can feel her pulse race where her fingers are still circled around her wrists, can hear her heartbeat hammer in her chest. She knows they’re on the precipice, and they both have a choice to make.

“You had your reasons for not telling me. And you seemed very invested in keeping it that way, so I thought it would be best to just…play along.”

“Why? Why not call me out, get things out into the open?”

When Lena looks up at her then, her eyes are focussed, clear. Like she’s just made a decision for herself.

“Is it so hard to believe that I wanted to keep you happy?”

And that, that’s the answer that pops the lingering worry in Kara’s chest like a balloon. It’s like the puzzle pieces finally fit together and Kara can’t help the crooked grin that overtakes her face.

“Listen, I know I’ve, um, I know that by not telling you, by keeping you in the dark for so long, I made decisions for the both of us. About, um, about us. And I want that to change. If you want friendship, I’m here. I’m all in, and I promise, no more secrets. But if you want, um, if you want something else, that’s fine, too. Anything. Lena. I’ll give you anything.”

For a long moment, Lena is silent. She stares at Kara, her eyes roaming along every inch of Kara’s face, and Kara briefly thinks that this is it. This is the moment when Lena will pull away and tell her to get out, that too much has happened for her to ever fully trust Kara.

But what Lena says instead is small, almost pleading.

“I need you to say it, Kara. I need to hear what you mean by something else. No more secrets. I can’t…I need clarity.”

Kara lets her hands fall on Lena’s hips and pulls her closer.

“I mean something more. More than friendship. You, you mean everything to me, Lena. You have, for a long time. I’m sorry that it has taken me so long to work up the courage to tell you. About who I am, and about how much I love you.”

Lena is so close to her now that Kara can feel the sharp intake of breath as soon as those last three words are out. She squeezes Lena’s hips gently and repeats them again. No more secrets. No more vague innuendos that leave a door open for backing out. Lena has been there for Kara all this time, unwavering in her support, despite Kara’s lies. The least Kara can do now is be honest. Finally.

“I love you, and I think we could be…more.If that’s, if that’s what you want.”

A long sigh works its way out of Lena’s chest before she says: “I want it all with you”

Kara knows there’s a dopey smile on her face now. “Yeah?”

In lieu of an answer, Lena crashes her lips against Kara’s in a kiss that’s both fierce and desperate. Kara can feel years of longing and uncertainty in the way Lena presses herself as close as possible, in the little gasps that escape her mouth as they deepen the kiss.

It’s not the soft, hesitant kiss that Kara had imagined their first kiss to be. But then again, nothing about Lena has ever been what Kara imagined. She knows they need to talk, still. To sort out what they both want from each other. And she knows she still has to make amends, that it will take a while to re-establish their connection, this time without the lies, without secret identities that hold them back. She indulges in the kiss for a while longer before she gently pulls back, giving them both a moment to gather themselves.

“How about that tea now?”

#supercorp #kara x lena #supercorp fic #supergirl

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cardcaptorsakura96 · 8 months

Text

Taxes, Taxes, Taxes-Chapter 1

Summary: What if superheroes had to pay a property damage tax every time they had a fight in the city?

Kara is seated at a cubicle in her Supergirl costume staring at a typical pencil pusher hurriedly typing in the numbers. She looked around and saw Clark sitting in another cubicle behind her. He turned around and wave.

“Let me know if you need any help!”

Kara winced, hurriedly turned back around, and slouched in her chair. She looked back at the desk and saw the paper that brought her here. She was being charged $10,000 in property damage to the city while as Supergirl. Clark got the same paper, but he only has to pay $5. Her eyes started glowing red in rage while she gripped the chair. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths.

“I hate being jealous, but it isn’t fair! I was supposed to be his defender, not the other way around. I even had military training before coming to Earth, but Clark makes everything here seem so effortless. It just makes me feel….irrelevant.”

It was a sobering thought that had been haunting Kara each day. If she couldn’t serve her purpose, what was she going to do? She was nearly drowning in her sorrows and self-hatred when she felt the office lady’s hand on her arm. She looked up at the lady and saw she had a cheerful disposition. Kara forced the smile back into her eyes and lips.

“I am sorry that I drifted off there….um Connie. Isn’t that your name?”

“Oh, you remember my name!”

Connie’s smile looked so genuine. Kara would have found it cute if this pencil pusher wasn’t about to clear her out of cash. She forced her smile even brighter hoping to charm the pants off this lady to lower the cost down.

“Yes. I try to be good with names as I can. Were you able to find anything that can bring the cost of the bill down?”

Connie’s smile grew dimmer.

“Shit!”

“Well, we can’t lower the cost…”

“Even though this is my first time?” said Kara with a pout on her face.

She wasn’t above groveling. She didn’t have this type of money, and she will be damned if she had to beg Clark for help.

“I know this seems very steep, but when villains and superheroes fight in the city, it causes a lot of property damage. The tax was created to help discourage these types of situations.”

“Even when we are saving the city?”

“If there was no way to get the villain out of the city, there would be little to no charge.”

“Which is what happened in my case.”

Connie’s face fell a little and started twisting her hands.

“Well, not exactly. While fighting Livewire, you took out several buildings before taking her down.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Property could have been saved if you had utilized the fire hydrant and open pool in the area to stop Livewire due to her water vulnerability instead of using brute force.”

Kara slid further in her seat and sighed.

“I could have been more careful, but I was just in a hurry to prove I could do things faster than Clark.”

Kara looked back and saw that Clark had finished his payment and left. She looked back to Connie solemnly and asked, “What can I do now? Is there some type of payment plan I can do since I don’t have that type of money on me?”

Connie smiled a bit and said, “There are tons of options. We have a variety of payment plans, or we have different volunteer opportunities that you can choose to work off the payment.”

Connie passed her the book of all their volunteer opportunities and perused it for a minute. She was bored until one entry caught her attention and brought a smirk to her face.

“I choose this one.”

Kara watched Connie’s face changed at her choice from a smile to a frown instantly.

“Umm, are you sure you want to do this type of work.”

Kara smiled, and said, “Why wouldn’t I want to bring smiles to sick kids in a Children’s Hospital?”

“But…um… it is run by Lena…”

“Luthor. Oh, I am aware. I believe in judging people for their merit and not by association.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.”

“Oh, I am sure.”

“Me working for the sister of Clark’s greatest enemy. This will so get under his skin.”

Kara laughed wickedly as Connie eyes her warily while signing her up for the volunteer gig.

#dc comics #dc universe #supergirl #kara danvers #lena luthor #supercorp #kara danvers x lena luthor #superman #clark kent #supergirl fanfic #supergirl fanfiction #supergirl au #supercorp fanfiction #supercorp fanfic #dc comics fanfiction #dc fanfic

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missluthorwillseeyounow · 10 months

Text

“Your sister found me because she was ready.”

Kara frowns. “Ready for what?”

“For the truth.” Lena replies simply. “To wake up and leave the lie behind.”

“The lie?” Lena’s words bring back echoes of Alex’s message. The Matrix still has you… You’ll find me, if you’re ready to wake up. “You mean… the Matrix?”

“Yes.”

Kara leans forward, her attention caught. “What is the Matrix?”

Lena sighs, her eyes clouding over. “I’m afraid no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. Right now, all I can tell you is that the Matrix is everywhere. It’s all around us. It’s in the air we breathe, in everything we touch…”

Lena ventures a hand between them to touch Kara’s, their hands connecting in the slightest. And even though she knows that she’s not really touching Kara’s hand, her mind feeds her the sensations of it — the softness of Kara’s skin, the gentle press of her flesh under Lena’s fingers.

Lena draws her hand away, and Kara follows it avidly with her eyes. “For you to know what the Matrix is, I have to go back to the beginning. Or at least, to where it begins for us.”

Or, the Supercorp Matrix AU

[So I found an old Matrix AU from a different fandom while I was rooting through my drive, and I thought it could be retooled into a Supercorp AU. Little did I know what I was inviting into my brain, but here we are suffering the consequences. (And now I have 2 different supercorp Matrix AUs. Great.) Spoilers ahead for the OG trilogy.]

In the movies, Neo is the One, but there are other Potentials. Each Potential displays extraordinary abilities beyond the standards of normal. Kara and Lena are both Potentials. Either one of them could be the One.

It begins in the Matrix, when Lena gets adopted by the Luthors as a little girl.

The Luthors are a picture-perfect family. Powerful, affluent, and respected. The father, the mother and the golden son. And Lena - smart, angelic and pretty, the perfect daughter - is the ideal addition to make their picturesque family complete.

Except when she's about 4 or so, it becomes apparent that Lena is not like other children.

It's immediately clear that her intellect far surpasses people four, five times her age. Lena is sharp and brilliant, able to grasp complex concepts most adults cannot. She seems to see the world around her in a different way.

The Luthors are no strangers to gifted children, their son Lex was deemed a prodigy at around the same age. At first, Lionel and Lillian take this as yet another proof of how exceptional Luthors are, and Lena is proudly displayed as their indigo child.

But Lena's talent develops as fast as she does.

Soon, she begins to exhibit strange, unexplained abilities. An expensive Waterford crystal goblet in Lionel's hand explodes when Lena has a tantrum. Once, Lillian walks into her playroom to find Lena having tea with her dolls, and when Lillian enters, all heads turn to her. Lena's and all four of her Madame Alexander dolls.

Her intellect begins to surpass what defines “normal” intelligence. She predicts and successfully foils an assassination attempt against Lionel. She prevents Lex from getting hit by a driver in a car chase five blocks away.

The last straw comes when Lena finds out that the cleaning lady's five year old son has cancer.

Lena convinces Alma to take her to see him. Five hours later, a tearful Alma brings the little girl back with something akin to wonder in her eyes. "Your little girl is an angel, Mr. Luthor. Bendecida por la Virgen. She cured my Carlos! She took away his sickness! Ella es un milagro de Dios!”

However, far from seeing it as a miracle, the Luthors circle the wagons. The next day, Lena finds out Alma has been dismissed, and a shift occurs in the Luthor household.

When Lena's abilities were within the parameters of "normal", they were good, something to be proud of. But now that her gifts have proven to be beyond that, they become alien, freakish. Something to be hidden. People would be asking too many questions, and Luthors do not permit those.

Suddenly, instead of being lauded for what she is able to do, Lena is now scrutinized and examined to find out what's "wrong" with her. It begins to strain the family that is obsessed with order and perfection.

They take Lena to various doctors and put her through all sorts of tests, but none of them seem able to find an explanation for Lena’s strange abilities.

Until they meet Rhea, an educator who runs an exclusive facility for “gifted” children.

An elegant and well-spoken woman, Rhea seems fascinated by Lena. Her teaching “methods” seem vague, but out of all the specialists Lena has seen so far, she is the only one who seems to understand and make a connection with her. At the very least, they seem to speak the same language. Rhea knows about this Matrix Lena has been talking about.

Rhea asks Lena if she wants to find out what the Matrix truly is. And when Lena agrees, Rhea takes the little girl to the Oracle to confirm her suspicions that she is a Potential.

Lena is taken to a tall building, riding all the way to the top floor with her little hand in Rhea’s. On the 64th floor, they enter a glass office in which an imperious looking blond woman sits, watching her with a piercing eye.

“Leave us.”

The woman orders sharply, slanting a glare at Rhea. She is at least 6 inches shorter than Rhea, even in heels, but her tone and her face brook no argument. Rhea retreats with a seething sneer, but she complies.

“Now, you,” the woman turns to Lena with a dark look and a raised brow. It fails to intimidate Lena, who has lived with Lillian Luthor’s pointed glares for the past three years of her life. “Do you know why you’re here?”

Lena merely blinks at her. “Because I know things.”

The woman scoffs. “So do I. Doesn’t make you special.” She gestures around her at her office with a spectacular view. “I know things too.”

Lena’s eyebrows rise as well. “Not everything.”

The woman’s glare intensifies, but Lena stares her down. After a moment, a corner of the woman’s mouth lifts, and she barks out a laugh. “You’re a smart one, aren’t you?”

Lena clasps her hands behind her back. “So I’ve been told.”

“Do you know who I am?”

Lena nods. “You’re the Oracle.”

The woman snorts delicately. “Did Rhea tell you that?”

Lena regards her solemnly. “She didn’t have to.”

The woman’s eyes narrow at her, but Lena says nothing more. She is scrutinized for another moment before the woman smirks. “Alright. Since you’re so smart, why don’t you tell me what you already know.”

Lena blinks at her, responding to the woman’s scrutinizing gaze in kind. “I know that you’re not human.”

Another laugh, this time louder. Piercing blue eyes gain a twinkle of mirth. “Very good. What else?”

“I know that you’re not real.”

The woman scoffs disdainfully. “Real is an abstract concept.”

“I know that I’m dreaming, and none of this is real.”

The mirth suddenly vanishes from the woman’s gaze, and her blue eyes stare at Lena intently. “What do you mean?”

Lena sweeps her little arms across the room. “This. All of this. Everything. It’s not real. It’s just a dream.”

The woman is leaning forward now. It looks to Lena as if she is holding her breath. “And what makes you think that?”

Lena chews thoughtfully on her lower lip. “Have you ever read Plato’s allegory of the cave?”

The woman’s eyebrows rise and an amused smile dances over her lips. “Of course.”

“It feels like that. Like the people chained to the walls of the cave, watching just shadows and reflections. Other people — even my parents, even Lex — they look around them and think that this is the real thing. But all we’re seeing are just shadows. Sometimes it makes me feel confused and blurry, like I’m dreaming, but I can’t wake up.”

The woman hums and her hands form a steeple under her chin as she continues to observe Lena.

"In the story, the prisoner who is freed into the sunlight was angry and in great pain after being in the dark for so long. Why would they go through that? Why not stay in the comfort of the darkness that they’ve known all their lives?”

Lena’s gaze doesn’t waver. “Because they would finally know the truth. They wouldn’t be living in a lie anymore. They would be free.”

A smile spreads across the woman’s face, and the nod she gives is almost approving. “Is that what you want?”

“Only if you tell me the truth.” Lena nods solemnly. “Will you tell me the truth, Oracle?”

“I’ll tell you everything you need to know.” The woman chuckles. “And one more thing. Call me Cat.”

Despite their animosity toward each other, both Cat and Rhea decide that Lena is more than ready for extraction.

The only problem is that Lena, at 6 years old, is one of the youngest children to be extracted so far. Because she’s so young, it’s decided that her family should be brought with her too. Lex, by then a teenager, is given a choice: to stay in the Matrix, or go down the rabbit hole, as it were.

Lex chooses to follow his family, and the Luthors are extracted by Rhea. They are brought on-board her ship, the Daxam. All four Luthors are taken to Zion, and told the truth about everything — the lie of the Matrix, the human harvest fields, and the fact that there is no going back.

That’s when it all goes to hell.

Lionel barely lasts three months.

Unable to accept the truth that his life of power and control was all a lie, and unwilling to believe that he now exists in a world where his name holds no weight, he somehow escapes Zion and finds his way to a human pod to try to inject himself back into the Matrix.

They search for him for weeks, and eventually they find him in the pod, impaled on the metal breathing hose stuffed into his mouth with the end sticking out the back of his head.

Lillian lasts longer, but this is no comfort.

Torn from her privileged life, her resentment begins to build and build, as she’s forced to accept her new reality.

Her perfect life was stolen from her. The high-paying job, the distinguished career, the unlimited influence, the beautiful house, the comfortable lifestyle — all gone. All apparently just a dream.

And now, Lillian has woken up to the dirt and drab and heat and toil of Zion’s underground, with nothing to show for her former life but the daughter she didn’t even ask for. The same daughter who is the very reason she’s trapped here now with no chance of going back.

She refuses to reconcile with her new reality, but she is no weakling like her husband. Instead, she lets the ugly, bitter ire fester inside her over the years, until it finally comes out.

One night, Lillian enters the rough, tiny cave that has become her unwilling home, creeps into the alcove carved into rock where her teenaged daughter sleeps and pours acid over her.

Lena’s screams wake others in the neighboring dwelling, and healers are immediately dispatched to tend to her wounds. Thankfully, Lena was turned away in her sleep, and the burns were limited to her back.

By the time her condition is pronounced stable, Lillian is gone.

Without her parents, Lena is taken in by Rhea to live with her, her husband Lar Gand and their infant son, Mon-El.

Rhea keeps Lena very close, almost jealously so. She prizes the young girl above all else in their household. Most of her time is devoted to teaching Lena, training her using the fight simulations and programs on the Daxam, instructing her on how to pilot the ship.

For Lena — who had grown up under Lillian’s growing resentment and bitterness, who had just survived a horrific attack on her by her own mother — Rhea is a godsend. Under Rhea’s maternal affection, Lena thrives. She pushes her own limits during her training, masters techniques with unparalleled speed and unerring accuracy, devours knowledge programs downloaded into her mind every time she’s plugged in. She blooms under Rhea’s freely-given praise, and works harder, starved as she was for acknowledgment and affection over the years.

As Rhea’s son, young Mon-El, grows up without displaying any unique abilities, he is often shunted to the side. Despite their age-difference, Lena makes a conscious effort to spend time with him, to give him the same nurturing Rhea is giving her.

She teaches Mon-El how to make repairs to the ship, explains how the thrusters work, how the pads keep the ship in balance. He’s most fascinated by the robotic armed exoskeletons that are kept at the dock for the city’s defense. He often asks Lena to take him to the bridge to watch them, and the two of them watch the exoskeletons being loaded, Lena leaning on the top rail, and Mon-El perched on the middle one, his skinny legs swinging in the air. As Lena smiles, the young boy boldly tells her that one day, he’ll pilot one of those.

It feels… nice. Almost like having a brother again. It feels like a second chance

After all, her own brother — well, that bridge was burned a long time ago, and Lena tries not to think about it.

But it’s hard to forget when she sees him all time, a nightmare come to life, whenever she’s plugged into the Matrix.

Lena will never forget the first time she saw her brother there.

Lex had abandoned them, had left his mother and sister in Zion years ago, as soon as he was of age. She’d tried to find him, had spent weeks, months, looking for him, to no avail.

Finally, Lena had been forced to accept that Lex had met their father’s fate. He could’ve been attacked by sentinels, gotten lost in the mechanical sewers, or worse, attempted the same thing Lionel had.

Either way, the result was the same, and the guilt and pain of it had been agony, but Lena had accepted it.

Until the day she met the Agent.

Most agents were already nigh indestructible, with their speed and brute strength, not to mention the internal communication they kept with each other through the program.

But this one… this one stayed on Lena’s tail with a dogged, malicious ferocity that she couldn’t shake off. It had been dangerously close several times already as he chased her throughout the dark, rain-soaked city streets. She couldn’t get a good lock on him, and it was all she could do to follow Jack’s instructions to the nearest extraction point.

Lena’s almost there, sliding into the booth, hand outstretched to grab the phone — when she sees it.

The Agent wearing her brother’s face, a feral smile stretching his lips as his fingertips brush the corner of her dark coat. The grin turns into a snarl as Lena lifts the phone to her ear, and he misses her by a millimeter.

It had been only a second, but… it was Lex.

Lena was sure of it. So sure that she had spent months hacking into the system with Brainy’s help, trying to find out what the hell was going on.

It takes six months of hacking into the mainframe to discover the truth. Lex had succeeded where their father had not. The son had surpassed the father.

Not only had Lex somehow managed to get himself reinserted into the Matrix, the anomaly of his presence in the code had also caused a glitch in the system itself.

It takes another encounter with Lex — in his new regalia of a generic black suit, bland tie and FBI-issued sunglasses — sneering at her as he points a gun at her head, to realize yet another knife-wound truth.

Her brother has become a virus in the Matrix.

________

Kara’s experience in the Matrix could not have been more different from Lena’s.

More than a decade before Lena was born, Kara Zorel was like any normal thirteen year old girl. She went to school, hung out with her friends, had a crush on the boy living next door. She got straight A’s, and volunteered at the local senior home.

Her quicksilver mind that could spot things others couldn’t was easily considered as part of her intelligence. She was a very smart girl, after all. Her obsession with puzzles and codes was easily filed away as a quirk or a phase she was going through until she found a new hobby.

Everything about her life seemed to be on track to become ordinary, until the day of the accident.

At least, they told her it was an accident. Kara doesn’t remember any of it. All she really remembers is waiting for a train at a subway station. She remembers her father mentioning a Trainmaster who would take them away, somewhere new. To a new home, her mother had said. [This is from the 3rd movie]

And then nothing.

Kara thinks she must have been dreaming, because she can remember being left alone in that subway station — the walls were blank and a sterile white, with nothing to indicate the presence of life except Kara herself sitting on the otherwise empty bench. She can remember the feeling of waiting, waiting endlessly for the nothing that would come — no trains, no other passengers, no one else at the station with her. She can remember running along the platform tirelessly, only to end up in the same place she’d started from. She remembers the feeling of being left behind and trapped and scared. Mostly scared.

And then the next thing she knows, she’s awake on a hospital bed with Eliza Danvers sleeping on the chair next to her.

The Danvers had found her on the train platform, curled up, unconscious, on the same bench she’d dreamed of. They’d thought she was a runaway, or a missing child, but the FBI agents who had come to Kara’s hospital room had told her that her parents were dead.

An accident, they’d said. A subway malfunction that had taken out a whole car. Under investigation, the man in sunglasses and a dark suit had reassured Jeremiah and Eliza in a monotonous voice.

With no one to claim her, no other family to speak of, Kara is taken in by the Danvers. They’re good people, kind and understanding when Kara wakes up in the middle of the night with nightmares of being trapped in a white sea of nothingness.

When Kara wakes up crying and sweating, Eliza is there to soothe her and rock her in her arms until she fell asleep again. When she tells Jeremiah that everything is too loud and bright, he sits her down and teaches her to calm her thoughts and meditate.

Alex, who had gone from being an only child to having an anxious, high-maintenance little intruder in her room, is less than happy about the situation. She keeps her distance, and gives Kara cold glares from across the bedroom or ignores her completely.

Until one night when Alex sneaks back into their room from the concert she’d snuck out to earlier, and finds Kara sitting on one corner of her bed with her knees curled up. With Alex gone for most of the night, Kara had been alone and had refused to fall asleep, terrified of having nightmares again.

With only a little bit of grumbling, Alex tosses all their pillows and blankets onto the floor, and drapes one of her sheets over both their beds to make their first blanket fort. The first of many.

Curled up on the floor next to Alex, Kara sleeps soundly through the night for the first time since waking up without her parents.

Still, despite slowly settling in with the Danvers, Kara can’t shake the feeling that something is off.

It feels as if everything around her is just a little bit off-kilter. As if the world had somehow changed in the time she’d been unconscious. Or maybe she had. Either way, it feels as if both Kara and the world around her know on some level that she’s not supposed to be here. Perhaps it’s because she was meant to die along with her parents. But by some unknown anomaly, here she is, half of her present, half of her straining to join her mother and father wherever they are.

It’s not a reflection on the Danvers. Kara couldn’t have asked for a better family to care for her. And she cares for them too. Over time, Kara gains a sister she would die for in a heartbeat, instead of a roommate who barely tolerated her presence when she first arrived. Her definition of ‘mother’ slowly expands and makes room for Eliza in her heart. She finds a man to respect and admire in Jeremiah.

Still, the feeling of being out of place persists throughout the years, always in the back of Kara’s mind.

Tragedy strikes when Jeremiah disappears.

It happens quickly, too quickly. One day her foster father is there, the next he’s gone. The only clue the police get is the last voicemail on Jeremiah’s phone.

The message starts with Jeremiah’s voice, reminding Alex that he’ll be picking her up from softball practice later, then it cuts off abruptly without warning.

Ten seconds later, another voice is heard through the other end, this time a smooth monotone. It sounds nothing at all like Jeremiah, and it sends a chill down Kara’s spine.

“The Luthor girl escaped again. She has eluded us one too many times for a human. She cannot avoid the inevitable…. Send the Brother. Next time, she dies.”

Nothing is found at the scene but Jeremiah’s phone. No evidence, no ransom note, no explanation for the strange message, nothing to trace, nothing to at all to suggest that Jeremiah Danvers was there. The blank-faced FBI agents offer no sympathy when they inform Eliza of the news in a smooth, apathetic monotone.

[[In case it’s not clear, Jeremiah got turned into an agent by the other agents who were chasing Lena during one of the times she was plugged into the Matrix]]

Their little family is shocked and reeling, but they cling to one another in their grief. Kara remembers something her mother always used to say. Stronger together, Kara. Life is hard, and we cannot face it alone. We must be each other’s strengths. We are always stronger together.

Still, life goes on. Keeps moving on, even after tragedy and loss. Sometimes, Kara feels as if the world is in constant motion, its inertia having no time to waste on a young girl who feels as if she has been left behind.

The sense of alienation increases, and Kara is diagnosed with depression. Which only serves to increase her family’s concern, and puts a near-permanent look of worry in Eliza’s eyes.

So Kara puts on her brightest smile and hugs her foster mother. She talks more, smiles wider, laughs louder, and makes more friends to go out with so she’s not at home alone in her room which no longer has Alex in it.

Alex goes to college, then med school, the chip on her shoulder large enough to be seen from space. She’s determined to find out what really happened to her father, and Kara knows how stubborn she is.

But she only really finds out how serious Alex is when her older sister declares that she’s joining the FBI, and no amount of talking from either Kara or Eliza can dissuade her.

And it’s not as if Kara has a leg to stand on. At least Alex has a purpose, a direction. Meanwhile, Kara has no idea what she wants to do with her life. She meanders around after college, a little bit lost and floundering. She’s intelligent, her professors said, but she lacks focus.

Eventually, she gets hired at Catco as an assistant to the big boss herself, Cat Grant.

All of 5’4” in heels, the woman herself strikes fear into the heart of every intern roaming the halls. It’s impossible not to snap to attention when her private elevator dings and she steps out. Each click of her heels is a reminder of the power she wields, and honestly, Kara is a little terrified of her.

But she straightens her spine and her glasses, tucks her hair behind her ear, and refuses to be cowed.

And it’s as if Miss Grant takes it as a challenge to break her, because her demands become more and more unrealistic, more and more impossible. But something inside Kara tells her not to back down, to stare her right back, and wait her out. Cat Grant is a puzzle, and Kara has always been good at puzzles.

The key comes in the form of Carter Grant.

Cat tasks Kara to pick her son up from school one afternoon, and Kara finds the young boy waiting for her right outside the school gates. He’s a very sweet boy, a little shy, but he eventually tells Kara about this comic he’s been reading about a young superhero named Supergirl.

As he begins to brighten up talking about his new favorite character, Carter doesn’t notice the car coming from the other side of the street. Neither does Kara at first. But something inside her tells her to turn around.

Maybe it was a sound, an instinct, and unconscious observation too quick for her mind to consciously process. Whatever it was, it had her turning just in time to see the car heading straight for Carter.

She barely has time to pull the boy back to the sidewalk, and the car almost clips him. Almost.

“Are you okay??” Kara hurriedly checks Carter for any injuries or signs that he’s shaken up. Other than the boy’s wide eyes, he seems to be fine.

“That- that was amazing! You were so fast, Kara! You were like Supergirl! How did you do that?”

As they walk back home, Cart gushes about how awesome Kara’s save was, how she was as fast and strong as Supergirl. Kara laughs it off, but the relief that the boy is okay lingers.

The second the front door closes behind Kara, Carter pulls out a phone and scrolls through the contact list until he finds ‘Mom’.

When Cat answers, he whispers excitedly into the phone. “She did it! She was even faster than Lena by 0.02 seconds!”

“Good. Did she say anything else?”

“She mentioned her sister. Are you going to tell the Manhunter? Is J’onn going to pull them out? Or maybe Lena can come? I like it when she comes to visit.”

A rustle of paper in the background, and Cat drawls in an almost bored voice. “Not yet. She’s not ready.”

[[In this AU, Carter is a computer program designed to assist the Oracle. Kinda like Seraph in the movies. He and Cat have a very unusual relationship. He was just supposed to be a simple program to help ward her, but he was designed to be charming in an innocent and disarming way to help distract from his real purpose. Cat developed a fondness for him, so when he tries to protect her when she’s in danger, she ends up shoving him behind her and protecting him.]]

On the anniversary of Jeremiah’s disappearance, another tragedy rocks the Danvers family.

Alex Danvers disappears.

Eliza is inconsolable, but Kara… Kara is numb, at first. Denial is always the first instinct of the human mind when a shock is delivered to its system. There’s talk of a search, trying to find out where she might have gone, her usual routine, any places Alex frequents — it all rolls over Kara’s head. They’re looking for a body, but that’s not how Alex is gonna be found.

Unlike Jeremiah’s disappearance, Alex’s is not without a trail. She is an FBI agent after all. There will always be a trail, and like in most FBI cases, it can be found in the absence of one.

In this case, it’s Alex’s computer. It’s missing.

The more Kara thinks about it, the more it galvanizes her. Kara knows Alex, knows her quirks and her habits. She didn’t have many friends outside of work, mostly people from med school she’s since lost touch with. No, anything that happened to Alex would be connected to her work, and Alex kept all her work files in that computer.

She throws herself into finding it. Find it, and she finds Alex.

For months, Kara follows every lead, every loose thread she can find, all in the hope of finding the computer. Every time she comes across a dead end, she doggedly retraces her steps until she can find another lead. The chalkboard in the kitchen that used to house her grocery list desk becomes a list of all possible locations. Her desk at Catco is a disaster of papers and post-it notes — a receipt from Cat’s dry cleaners here, the number for Annie Leibovitz’s assistant there, and Alex’s bank statements piled on top.

All the while, Cat watches her. Observes her tenacity, her ability to find patterns that no one else would’ve noticed, her keen attention that allows her to find details that other people would’ve ignored.

Finally, after nearly a year of looking, Kara finds Alex’s computer in a security deposit box under the alias Alice Liddell.

It takes her all night, but Kara manages to gain access to Alex’s documents. She finds file after file on Alex’s investigation into Jeremiah’s disappearance. Articles on similar disappearances all over the world. Some incidents are identical to Jeremiah’s, some with more of a trail. The victimology is all over the place, but in certain cases, there is a disturbing pattern.

A number of the disappearances occur in National City, and nearly all of them have one thing in common. They’ve all been patients or relatives of patients at the Luthor Family Hospital — a stroke patient and his fiancee, a woman in a car accident, a man with a gunshot wound, an old lady with Alzheimer's and her widow, even three children from the cancer ward and one of their mothers. Most of these people were deceased, but there must have been some reason Alex thought otherwise. And if she was right, then there is something very disturbing going on in the Luthor Family Hospital.

Kara keeps searching the files, and finds a certain devolution in Alex’s notes. Towards the end, she seemed more and more disorganized, her thoughts more and more disjointed. And Kara feels a terrible sense of guilt at not noticing what her sister was going through.

Throughout the files, she finds multiple references Alex made to something called the Matrix. She stumbles upon a mess of a pdf that she’d originally thought was gibberish, but upon closer inspection actually more closely resembles computer code. And in the middle of the unintelligible tangle of letters and symbols, she finds a question.

What is the Matrix?

Just as Kara is trying to make sense of the question, a new message alert appears in Alex’s inbox. Kara stares at the screen. It originated from Alex’s own email. Frowning, she clicks on the message, and her eyes widen as she reads.

I’m alive.

Kara springs forward so fast, she almost dislodges the laptop from her kitchen counter. She tries multiple times to reply to the message, but nothing happens. Kara growls, and almost as if the computer can sense her frustration, another message appears.

I’m alive and I’m out.

Kara’s brows furrow. What? What the hell?

The Matrix still has you, Kara.

Kara’s frown deepens and she looks around her, checks the computer. Is this some kind of prank?

I’m sorry I had to leave, but you can’t follow. Not until you’re ready.

Ready for what, Kara thinks.

Ready to give it all up. Ready to wake up. You told me once that you felt like everything since you woke up in the subway station has felt strange, like a dream. You were right, it is. And you’ll find me, if you’re ready to wake up.

Kara’s jaw drops in shock.

Follow the white rabbit.

The message flashes across the screen for a moment, then the monitor goes black. Kara snaps it shut and pushes it as far away from her as she can.

That — what was that? A-a trick? A hallucination brought on by the lack of sleep and her hyperfixation?

She could check it again, turn the laptop back on and click on the messages again — but suddenly Kara is gripped by fear, and denial feels more like a comfort.

She packs away the computer, stowing it under the desk where she can’t see it, and goes to bed. She doesn’t sleep until 3 AM.

But of course, Kara is no coward. She’s never been one to back down to her fears. In the morning, armed with a cup of Noonan’s coffee and a clearer mind, she opens the laptop again.

She doesn’t quite have the courage to check the messages yet, but she finds another article. This time, about the [head] of the Luthor Family Hospital, a woman named Lena Luthor.

It takes no time at all for her quick mind to make a connection, but it takes a while for the rest of her conscious brain to catch up.

Luthor. She’d heard that name before. In a voicemail, the only thing left of Jeremiah Danvers. “The Luthor girl got away again.”

Lena Luthor.

That can’t be a coincidence. Alex had been looking into their dad’s disappearance, and the Luthor name has already come up more than once, and now a female Luthor.

All the research she does on Lena Luthor comes up with next to nothing. Other than business articles and some papers in several scientific journals, there’s very little mention of the woman. So far, all Kara knows is that Lena Luthor is the CEO of one of the leading tech companies in the world, dedicated to providing accessible technology and communication devices to billions of people all over the globe — their new L-Phones are popping up everywhere. She’s also apparently a brilliant scientist and researcher, invested in scientific research to help prevent and cure diseases. She also owns and is directly involved in the running of the Luthor Family Hospital, a facility known for innovative and experimental medicine.

And for all of her work and accolades, there has never been a single photograph of this woman past the age of 6. Nothing. This woman’s image has never been recorded in any way, in any kind of media, in any event, in all the years that she has been running L-Corp. How is that even possible?

Now, Kara’s definitely suspicious.

Three days after the computer is found — plenty of time for thinking, but not too much time to do something stupid, she thinks — Cat makes her move.

She summons Kara to her office and delivers her ultimatum, in the form of an offer.

“Y- You think I have what it takes to be a reporter?”

“You’re an intelligent woman, Keira. But more than that, you can see things others can’t. You observe far more than people give you credit for. You could have a bright future here at Catco.”

Cat surveys her intently over her glasses. “It’s your choice. You can take the job, or you can keep wasting your life going down this rabbit hole.”

Cat gestures toward Kara’s messy desk, but again Kara’s quick mind gives her a nudge. That’s the third reference she’s heard in as many days. Rabbit hole. Alice. White rabbit.

Kara asks Cat for time to think about it, but really, she’s already made her decision. She uses her connect as Cat’s assistant to set up an appointment, introducing herself as Kara Danvers from Catco, writing an article about the Luthor Family Hospital.

The assistant confirms that Miss Luthor would be delighted to give Catco a glimpse into the facility to bring awareness of the work they do, and confirms the time.

When Kara arrives, she is directed to the children’s cancer center. When she sees the whimsical mural of a white rabbit hopping along a trail on the walls, she knows she’s at the right place.

Kara follows the mural until she reaches a room at the end of the hall. A soft feminine voice floats down the hallway and reaches Kara’s ears.

“To begin with, tell me, do you think that these men would have seen anything of themselves or of one another except the shadows cast from the fire on the wall of the cave that fronted them?

How could they, he said, if they were compelled to hold their heads unmoved through life?”

Kara walks closer, drawn to the sound. She stops just outside the door to what is clearly a child’s hospital room. A little girl in white pajamas and a colorful bonnet sits cross-legged in the middle of the bed, listening to the dark-haired woman sitting on the chair by her side. The woman’s back is turned to Kara, but she can see the book she’s reading from. Plato.

“By Zeus, I do not, said he.

Then in every way such prisoners would deem reality to be nothing else than the shadows of the artificial objects.”

“Quite inevitably.” The little girl on the bed quotes with a smile. Kara hears a soft, amused hum from the woman.

“Consider, then, what would be the manner of the release and healing from these bonds… When one was freed from his fetters and compelled to stand up suddenly and turn his head around… and lift up his eyes to the light, and in doing all this, felt pain…”

Kara sees the moment the reader realizes that she’s there. The woman’s head turns just the slightest, and Kara can see her sharp, elegant profile silhouetted in the light. She keeps reading, but at this point, they both know she’s aware of Kara’s presence. Kara continues to listen silently.

“What do you suppose would be his answer if someone told him that what he had seen before was all a cheat and an illusion… But that now, being nearer to reality and turned toward more real things, he saw more truly?”

Just then, the little girl’s eyes snap up to meet Kara’s, and big black eyes blink owlishly at her. “Miss Lena, we have a visitor.”

The woman finally turns, and Kara gets her first glimpse of Lena Luthor. Cut-glass green eyes are perceptive as they take Kara in, and a small smile plays on the corner of red lips.

“So we do, Zuri.”

She sets the book down on the bed beside the child and rises from her seat, a pale hand extended. "Kara Danvers, I presume?"

It takes Kara a second to reply, unable to take her eyes off the woman. There’s something arresting about her, something that could probably stop anyone in their tracks. Even the way she tips her head to survey Kara is fluid and mesmerizing.

Clearing her throat, Kara takes Lena Luthor’s proffered hand. “Yeah – uh, yes.”

The woman's smile grows. "I've been expecting you."

For a moment, the words make Kara's stomach flutter, then the 'duh' moment hits her. Of course she'd been expecting her, they had an appointment. Kara's face flushes red. "I've been looking forward to meeting you, Miss Luthor."

Green eyes gain a look of amusement and crinkle at the corners. Lena Luthor looks as if she has a secret, or like she’s in on a joke Kara doesn't know. "Not as much as I have, I'm sure."

Kara's brows furrow in confusion, but before she can ask the woman what she means, the Luthor bends down and kisses the top of the child's head, before heading out the door and gesturing for Kara to follow.

[[I just love the idea of Lena reading the Allegory of the Cave to the children like she did when she was a kid, as her way of preparing them, a way of telling them that yes, extraction will hurt, it won't be easy to accept the truth, but they will be free].

[Also in this AU, the extraction points used to be the pay phones like in the movie, except those got phased out once the machines figured out that’s what the resistance was using. So Lena developed the L-phones, and made it so one would always be easily accessible. That’s the work she does at L-Corp]]

After their tour of the hospital concludes, Lena watches Kara walk out through the double doors, throwing a friendly wave behind her. As soon as she's out of sight, she pulls out an L-phone.

"Well, she’s persistent, I'll give you that."

"Told you. Who do you think she got it from?”

“I see stubbornness runs in the family.” Lena hums in amusement.

A chuckle from the other end of the line. “You have no idea.”

"How close is she?"

Alex’s voice turns business-like. "Well, she’s made the connection to you, and Kelly’s seeing some sizeable fluctuations in the code, so I'd say she’s getting there. J’onn thinks she might be ready soon. He says she’s responding quickly for someone who hasn’t had as long to adjust. Sooner if you prepare her, probably.”

“That won’t be a problem.”

“Rhea,” Lena can hear the seething disdain Alex’s voice, and thinks her mentor is probably standing over Alex’s shoulder as they speak. “Would like me to remind you that the sooner we pull out my sister —“ Lena can almost see her glare at Rhea. “The sooner you can get back to the Daxam, and this can ‘all be over with’.”

Lena shakes her head. “I’m not pulling her out before she’s ready. The consequences could be disastrous.”

“Yeah? Try telling that to your Captain.”

They’re interrupted by an excited young voice. “Hi, Lena!”

“Mon-El?”

Alex snorts over the line. “Yeah, can you believe her? She brought the kid over just to get you to ‘speed things up’.”

“When are you coming back, Lena? I miss you! I snuck into the dock last week, but M’gann caught me. She said she’d teach me how to make shells if I promised not to go past the bridge again. And Imra asked if she could come with us the next time we go to the bridge to see the loaders, I told her yeah. That’s okay, right?”

Despite the seriousness of their situation, Lena can’t help but smile a bit at the young boy’s enthusiasm. “Of course she can. I’ll be back soon, Mon-El. Stay out of trouble, and do what your ranking officer says.”

“Okay, kid, you heard the lady. Go bother Brainy and Kelly at operations. It's about time you learn to read code anyway."

Lena can hear the boy grumbling in the background, but he obeys. As soon as he's out of earshot, Lena goes back to business.

“Start a trace for Kara's pod location, and standby. Be ready to plug in when I tell you to.”

"Copy. J’onn’s gonna try to get us as close as he can, but it's the fields. We can never be too careful. And Lena…? Try to make it easy for her."

Alex’s voice softens at her request, her concern for her sister evident in every word, and Lena understands. Just as Alex understands that there is nothing easy about the truth Kara will have to see.

"I'll do what I can."

This is not the last time Kara pays her a visit.

Under the guise of her article, Kara returns to Lena again. And again.

The first time she comes over under the guise of an interview, she stays until lunch. And then takes Lena to lunch, partly to make up for ruining her schedule, and partly because the CEO confesses that she often forgets to eat throughout the day.

They eat at Kara’s favorite lunch spot, Noonan’s, where Kara is aghast to learn that Lena has never tried any of their desserts despite the café being less than a block away from L-Corp. They end up trying nearly every dessert on the menu. Or at least Lena samples a little bit of everything, and Kara finishes it all off.

They part, with some reluctance on Kara’s end, three hours past Kara’s allotted time, but Lena assures her that it was worth clearing her schedule, considering how much she enjoyed Kara’s company.

It’s only after she’s no longer in Lena’s presence that Kara realizes she’d all but forgotten about her purpose for coming, which was to interrogate her about the suspicious disappearances at the Luthor Family Hospital, and about Lena’s possible involvement in Alex’s own disappearance.

She returns, this time with the flimsy excuse of bringing Lena lunch now that she knows the CEO won’t remember it herself. Lena suggests they go out to the nearby city park to enjoy her break there.

Lena leads her to a bench on a hill and they sit there quietly, enjoying their view of the park. Lena gives Kara a shy smile. “I like to come out here sometimes. When everything becomes… too much. Sometimes, everything around me just feels so wrong and… fake. Especially with what I do. It feels like none of it, none of this is real.”

Kara turns to look at her fully, a crinkle in her forehead, and Lena wonders if she's pushing it. “What do you mean?”

“Have you ever had that feeling where… you’re not sure if you’re dreaming or awake? And you’re not quite sure if anything around you is real or not?”

Lena chances a look at the other woman. Kara is looking back at her, eyes wide and intent. It takes a moment, one long moment where Kara is just staring at her, as if trying to puzzle her out. Then she nods.

“Yeah. All time.”

“That’s how I used to feel.” Lena holds her gaze, steady green meeting wondering blue. Kara is so close right now, so close that Lena could tell her. How easy it would be if Lena could convey the truth just by looking into Kara’s eyes. But she’s not ready yet. Lena drops her gaze with a soft laugh.

“I guess I was just thinking, if none of this is real, then none of my problems there would be real, either.” She gestures back at L-Corp with a wry smile.

Kara takes the bit, and her smile softens, blue gaze losing some of its intensity.

Kara fails her mission again that time. And the next. And the next. It feels as if she forgets her problems when she’s with Lena. For the first time in a long time, it doesn’t feel like she’s out of place. The world doesn’t feel so wrong when she’s with Lena, or at least, it doesn’t bother Kara as much. She feels like… herself.

As for Lena, she knows they’re running out of time, and that the agents will catch wind of them soon. Especially since Kara is on the precipice of the truth.

But for the first time, Lena finds herself delaying the inevitable. It’s unlike her — the Potential who has spent her whole life freeing as many minds from the Matrix as she can; the second-highest ranking officer and chief engineer of the Daxam, who seizes every situation with a level head and a calm command.

“What are you doing, Lena?”

Rhea’s voice is an imperious snap, even over the line. “You have never spent this long in the Matrix since I pulled you out. You’re putting yourself in danger for a simple extraction. It shouldn’t be taking this long.”

“No extraction is ever simple. I told you, she’s not ready.”

“I know you and that Oracle—” the word is practically a hiss in her mentor’s mouth. “—think that this woman is a Potential, but if she really were that special, she would’ve been ready a long time ago. You were ready long before I found you.”

“This is different—“

“Why? Because you’re sweet on her?”

Lena’s eyes narrow. “You know that’s not why.”

As soon as Lena’s tone gains an authoritative edge, Rhea softens. “I know, my dear. But you know how I worry about you being plugged in for so long with… Lex out there. Besides, you have been neglecting your duties on the ship. Your crew needs you, Mon-El needs you. Come back home, Lena.”

Lena relents. “I will. Soon.”

But ending her time with Kara is easier said than done.

It may be selfish, but around Kara, Lena feels lighter. Her responsibilities don’t weigh as much, and the bleakness of war vanishes in the company of someone so earnest and warm and hopeful. Kara is… resilient. In spite of all that she’s been through, she remains strong, determined, and most incredible of all, kind.

Lena watches Kara with the children — the youngest Potentials, who see the wrongness of the world around them, but aren’t ready yet to be pulled out — and watches her pull gap-toothed smiles and belly laughs out of even the most solemn ones.

She extends this kindness, even to Lena — over daily reminders to eat and take care of herself, to lunch dates she tags Lena along to because she thinks Lena will forget to eat otherwise.

Once, after a successful extraction of one of Lena’s children, a somber Kara brings a small bouquet of plumerias to the little girl’s empty room. She finds Lena sitting next to the child’s empty bed.

“I’m so sorry.” Kara plucks a single plumeria from the bouquet, before setting the flowers on the girl’s pillow.

Lena shakes her head, a serene smile on her face. “Don’t be. She’s free. She’s in a better place now.”

Kara, not understanding her words, gives her a sad smile. She takes Lena’s hand and presses the single plumeria into her fingers. “I’m sure she is.”

Every day, Lena fails to tell Kara the truth, wanting to prolong their time together. And most of all, wanting to spare Kara for just a little longer. Lena can’t bear the thought of being another person who adds to everything Kara’s gone through, of being the reason why that smile dims a little more, or worse, never appears again at all.

Her hesitation nearly costs them everything.

#supercorp #supergirl #katie mcgrath #lena luthor #melissa benoist #kara danvers #me trying to write #I've been working on this thing all weekend ugh. i just wanna yeet it out there #there's more if anyone wants it #also in case it’s not clear the kid at the end of the moodboard is young Mon-El #i should sleep. ugh. i so sleepy #i forgot brainy in the moodboard *facepalm #oh well too late to add himj #gotta sleep. gotta sleep #fuckin tumblr took away all my formatting ugh #alex danvers #cat grant #nia nal

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