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Lena Luthor is dating Kara Danvers, but she is not dating Supergirl.
Sometimes Kara forgets this.
Sometimes she forgets that Kara Danvers doesn’t have superpowers; that Kara Danvers can’t jump in front of bullets or race out of lunch dates without being extraordinarily rude; that Kara Danvers is supposed to feel the cold, is supposed to take the bus to work, is supposed to not understand when her girlfriend talks about alien technology like she’s intimately familiar with it.
(That Kara Danvers isn’t supposed to get turned on when her girlfriend talks shop about alien technology.)
But Kara Danvers forgetting isn’t a big deal — she’s spent a good amount of time cultivating a very “forgetful” persona for exactly this reason. She’s clumsy; she trips over stairs and over words; she gets flustered and loses her place when she’s reading or working or talking; she gets distracted in meetings and when Lena kisses that little spot under her ear…
Kara Danvers is forgetful.
It doesn’t matter so much when her eyes go glassy (distracted by the noises of National City, heavy and crashing over her with bruising force). Lena just smirks and kisses her and she blushes and pretends like she’s getting lost in her own thoughts and not like she’s itching under her skin to stop the domestic assault happening 6 city blocks from them.
But not everything is a job for Supergirl. She learned early on that she can’t save everyone.
(It hurts, though. Just because she can’t save everyone doesn’t mean that she feels the pain of each loss— of each failure – any less.)
It doesn’t matter when she stumbles into dates fifteen or thirty minutes late (only barely able to tuck her cape away, hidden under clothes or in some back alley or in the backpack she’s taken to carrying around, shoving her glasses onto her nose with a desperation she tries to hide. Lena smiles ruefully at her and just shakes her head, raising her wine glass to her lips while Kara mumbles about ‘buses’ and ‘deadlines’).
It doesn’t matter when she slides around words, slipping in and out of coherence when she gets especially flustered (it isn’t like anyone at CatCo can understand the Kryptonian language she feels most comfortable speaking; it isn’t like her coworkers understand that sometimes she forgets the word for “Xerox machine” and ends up saying something entirely alien; it isn’t like Lena knows the difference between Kryptonian curse words and senseless English babbling when she’s mid-climax).
Kara Danvers is forgetful. Kara Danvers forgets. That isn’t the issue.
The issue is in a moment like this, standing behind Alex at the DEO, her sister’s chair gripped so tightly in her fist that the plastic splinters and crumbles like it’s paper. The issue is that the DEO is overwhelmed with chatter, with murmured voices in tiny headsets, with her sister’s steadily climbing heartbeat, with J’onn’s clenched jaw and furrowed brow.
The issue is that they just got a call that L-Corp is under attack.
Multiple casualties. No eye-line on Luthor.
The issue isn’t that Kara Danvers forgets.
The issue is that Supergirl does.
~~
She can hear Alex’s breath build in her chest, can hear the click of her teeth as her mouth opens, the loud creak of her chair as Alex turns to warn her against doing anything stupid.
(She knows her sister. She knows what’s about to come out of her mouth.)
“Supergirl, I don’t—”
By the time Alex turns around and blinks, Kara’s gone, already speeding towards L-Corp before her sister can even finish forming the warning on her tongue.
Alex sighs and grits her teeth. “Goddammit,” she hisses under her breath. “She always does this.”
Her eyes seek out her boss, but J’onn is already halfway to the armory by the time she spots his form.
Seems like everyone is two steps ahead of her today.
(It isn’t totally fair, though, when you have a lightning-fast sister with superpowers and a boss who can read minds. Alex is pretty much always playing catch-up, always a few seconds behind the action.)
“Move it, Danvers!” J’onn calls over his shoulder. “We have a superhero to save!”
Alex sighs and fights against the tension headache building in her temples but rushes after him either way.
Kara’s always been a little forgetful (a little brash, a little reckless).
Figures she’d jump headfirst into this, too.
(She knows her sister.)
~~
Lena hadn’t known anything was wrong — hadn’t felt any tremors or heard any sirens — until every window on the west side of her building had exploded inwards, sprinkling glass like confetti after a parade across bodies and tables, shaking the foundation and sending L-Corp’s inhabitants tumbling to the floor.
Lena had been on the first floor, deep in the recesses of her lab, talking to the men in charge of R&D, when she felt the building quake.
(A bomb, she later learns — or rather 3 bombs, placed indiscriminately around this neighborhood, around this section of National City. A distraction, apparently, for a bank robbery taking place across town. 24 people killed, 68 injured.)
(Heavy-handed, for a simple robbery, in her opinion; either heavy-handed, clumsy, excessively cruel, or downright ignorant. The men didn’t know what they were doing when they built their bombs — too powerful, too many, in too-crowded locations.)
(Lena — quietly, and only to herself, when she has a moment to sit and read the articles printed about the attack — hopes they fry.)
She stumbles a little on her heels with the force of the explosion, but while the rest of her employees are hoisting themselves off of the floor Lena is already hurrying her way towards the front of her building.
When she gets to the lobby she wonders briefly if a pipe has burst somewhere above them before realizing that, no, shards of glass cover the floor like a deadly liquid gleam, not water.
She gives herself exactly 4 seconds to take in the situation (to observe the damage at first glance, to assess the structural security of the building, to question whether or not the threat is internal or external, to notice the people on the street ducking for cover in the midst of fiery chaos), before—
“Everyone, evacuate now,” she commands the still-dazed employees nearest her. Her eyes search for the looming figure she knows resides behind the front desk. “Tony,” she calls, making her way precariously towards him, “pull the fire alarm. Call the police. Get everyone out, now.”
“Yes ma’am.”
(Later, she will memorize the casualties and quietly send a wreath of flowers to each of the 2 dozen funerals. She doesn’t tell anyone, not even Kara. Lena knows what it’s like to lose someone you love too early; knows that even the smallest gestures can go the farthest.)
(She hopes she can help.)
The lights in her building start flashing and alarms blare through the surrounding streets.
She wonders, briefly, if the stairs will hold; wonders if the entire building is just waiting to crumble at the first aftershock; wonders if another attack is following on the heels of this one; wonders if any of her tech is going to survive the explosion or the resulting fires; wonders if she’s going to make it out of here alive; wonders if Kara knows where she is…
~~
“L-Corp is under attack.” That’s what the DEO agent over comms had said. “L-Corp is under attack.”
As Kara crashes through the air, speeding towards the towering fire she can see on the horizon, she can’t help but think that they may have undersold the problem.
Just a bit.
~~
“Everyone, out. Now!” Lena calls again, and this time more people seem to hear her. The lobby is starting to fill with the rushing employees from the nearest levels, and Lena watches them file out of the front doors and move as far away from her company (as far away from her) as they possibly can.
She eyes the stairs, wondering if she can make it up them, wondering if she can fight against the stampeding crowd to make it to the other floors to check that no one is hurt, that no one is buried under errant rubble, that no one has missed the evacuation order.
“Miss Luthor,” Tony’s voice, close behind her. She turns to face him. “Ma’am I’m afraid I have to get you out of here. You can’t stay. It isn’t safe.”
“But what if—”
He cuts her off, already anticipating this line of questioning. “The police will do what they can for anyone trapped. But we have to leave now, Miss Luthor.”
She nods and allows him to shepherd her out with the crushing crowd.
In seconds she has lost his tall frame under the press of people, and she knows that her dark hair and slight build must make her invisible to him, as well.
She clutches her phone tightly in her hand and wonders if she can make it back inside before—
“Supergirl.”
It’s almost a whisper, and Lena’s not even entirely sure she heard it come from anywhere, much less from a specific person. She glances around (glances towards the sky). When she sees nothing resembling National City’s flying hero, Lena thinks she must have imagined the sound (call it wishful thinking or what have you).
Then again, She has been known to appear whenever trouble strikes.
And as Lena surveys the damage around her, she thinks that this could certainly be considered trouble.
The name starts to reverberate through the crowd again, at first a low buzz, and then building and building.
“Supergirl!”
“There she is!”
“Supergirl, down here!”
Lena looks up and sure enough, there She is in all her red-and-blue glory: The Girl of Steel.
She hovers above the crowd, her eyes scanning, her face tense (Is she looking for someone? Lena’s mind whispers). Supergirl doesn’t move for several seconds, and Lena wonders what on Earth she could possibly be waiting for, a goddamn invitation to—?
An explosion from a hundred yards behind Lena has her ducking her head as the crowd swells forward and away from this new threat. A few people scream and Lena is once again pressed forward with the scrambling mob and she loses sight of Supergirl as the young woman leaps into action, propelling herself towards the commotion.
(A car, she later learns — that had caught on fire after the bomb — finally exploding. 3 people killed, 10 more injured.)
~~
It doesn’t mean anything, Kara’s mind whispers to her, even as she attempts to staunch the rapidly-growing fire with every last bit of air she carries in her lungs. Just because you didn’t see her in the crowd doesn’t mean she wasn’t there. There were a lot of people. She’s fine.
But the space between Kara’s shoulder blades itches and her fingers twitch with anxiety and a desperate desire to just find her.
But she can’t. Because she isn’t Kara Danvers right now, and Lena Luthor is not her girlfriend.
She’s Supergirl.
National City comes first.
She mentally lists her priorities in terms of most-pressing danger (not in terms of her desire to solve them).
- Stop Fire.
- Find Trapped Victims.
- Save Trapped Victims.
- Point Fire Department Towards Trapped Victims.
- Find Lena. Make Sure Lena Is Safe.
She fights against the desire to cringe. Lena is last (last) on her priority list.
She hates it.
But… Lena Luthor isn’t… she can’t forget that she has to (she should) save as many people as possible. One life is not worth twenty. There could be people trapped all over… there could be people dying, who need her help…
She perks her ears as the fire slowly gets under control. EMS is at least 5 minutes out (maybe longer if the crowds don’t disperse).
She can do this.
5 minutes; maybe 10. She can wait to find Lena for 10 minutes.
(It ends up being 24; 24 long minutes Kara counts down with painful agony. But she has to wait. It’s her job.)
~~
Alex’s voice pings in her ear after a grueling 22 minutes.
“We have it under control, Kara.”
Kara stiffens momentarily from where she’s hefting a particularly heavy slab of concrete off of the crushed legs of a man in a neatly-pressed suit.
(He screams. She grits her teeth and tries not to look too closely.)
“Is this—?”
“It’s a private channel. We’re the only ones listening.”
“Are you—?”
“I’m sure, Kara. Now, I’m telling you we have this covered. Go find her.”
Kara bites her lip even as she cradles the man’s limp body in her arms. His heart is beating, but it’s slight; it’s weak. She desperately hopes that he’ll make it.
“It’s fine,” she says, against her better judgment and counter to the screaming voice inside of her head and the pounding in her chest. “You need me here, so I’ll just—”
“I will call you if we need you to lift anything that ten men can’t, I promise. Just… Stop being Supergirl for thirty seconds. I know you’re dying to make sure she’s okay.”
Kara lets out a breath as she transfers the man gingerly to a stretcher just outside the L-Corp doors.
Her sister certainly knows her.
“Thank you, Alex,” she mutters quietly.
A soft click of the tongue is her only indication that her sister’s heard her, but it’s enough.
She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and focuses all the energy she has into one task: Find Lena.
~~
A wall of muscle collides with Lena’s front faster than she can blink. The air leaves her lungs with a dramatic woosh as she is engulfed in the tightest hug she’s ever been a part of.
“Oh Lena. Thank Rao, I was so worried.”
Lena is stiff in the embrace. It takes her a few moments to discern the dark blue that is so emblematic of National City’s hero, and a few moments longer to try and figure out exactly why Supergirl thought she should hug her.
Why is Supergirl hugging her?
Lena isn’t sure what to do. It’s not like she can muscle her way out of an embrace with the world’s strongest woman.
So she stands still and immobile and hopes the awkwardness of the contact does the trick.
(It does.)
Supergirl tenses against her and then shoots backward several feet, leaving a more comfortable distance between them. Lena clears her throat and adjusts her dress, while Supergirl blushes (blushes) and looks down at her feet.
“S-sorry about that, Miss Luthor. I don’t know what I was—”
Lena waves her off. “It’s not important,” she breezes, because it isn’t. She has other things… significantly more important things to worry about than Supergirl’s lack of personal boundaries.
Namely, the fact that Kara hasn’t tried to contact her once since the first explosion almost 30 minutes ago (she works for a news organization, there’s no way she hasn’t heard about the bombing by now), which could mean that…
Lena’s cellphone creaks in her hand as she grips it with white-knuckled panic.
“Are you alright?” Supergirl asks again, taking one cautious step forwards, her fingers twitching at her sides.
Lena hardly hears her.
Kara wouldn’t, she thinks to herself. She wouldn’t.
But… would she?
Would she do something so foolish and reckless as… would she try to cover a mass-terrorism event mere moments after it occurred? She wouldn’t… no. No she wouldn’t just…
But what if she would?
Or worse… what if she had been on her way to meet Lena, to surprise her with lunch, when the bomb—?
“Miss Luthor?” Supergirl tries again, and this shakes Lena out of her stupor. Her palms are sweaty, her grip loosening around her phone, and she surreptitiously wipes her hand against her thigh in an attempt to get her emotions under control.
She clenches her jaw and tries to look impassive. “Thank you for your concern, Supergirl,” she says as sincerely as she can manage, given the circumstances, “but if you’ll excuse me…” Supergirl looks reluctant (reluctant?) to have her leave, and Lena finds herself explaining without even really meaning to.
She sighs. “I can’t get a hold of my girlfriend and in… in all of this I just…” she shakes her head and moves away without another word, bringing her phone up to press against her ear.
It rings and rings, but the tinny voice that comes through simply says: Hi, you’ve reached Kara Danvers. Sorry I can’t come—
Lena curses under her breath and hangs up.
“For fuck’s sake Kara pick up the phone… pick up the phone,” she quietly implores.
Her stomach hurts and she’s desperately trying to keep her shaking hands under control, because a bomb just exploded what feels like half of National City and she can’t get a hold of Kara.
And there are people being dug out of the rubble around her; and Kara is a journalist and of course she wouldn’t run away from trouble, but rather directly towards it; and there are EMS vehicles and paramedics dashing through the fallout and she can’t get a hold of Kara.
“Umm… Miss Luthor…?”
Hi, you’ve reached Kara Danvers. Sorry I—
Lena curses again, hangs up the call, and tries again. “Supergirl, I understand your job is important,” she says, distracted by the phone pressed to her ear, “but I think it could perhaps wait until I’ve found—”
“Did you… do you think the attack was targeted at you?”
Lena doesn’t even look at her (barely hears her), and answers almost on auto-pilot: “I don’t understand why this—”
Supergirl takes a step forward and Lena’s eyes jump to her face. “Please, Lena, just tell me… do you think they were after you?”
Lena glares at the woman standing in front of her.
She didn’t have time for this… she doesn’t have time for this. She still can’t find Kara. “Take a look at the city, Supergirl. Does this feel like someone with a personal vendetta against me?” Supergirl (Lena takes some malicious glee in noticing) blinks several times, brow furrowed in concentration.
Hi, you’ve reached Kara Danv—
She takes another breath, and continues without looking up from her phone, her back towards Supergirl. “Or do you think, perhaps,” she spits the word like venom, “that it’s possible that not everything bad that happens in your city must always lead back to me?”
Supergirl splutters, loud and almost indignant. “What do you mean my city?”
Lena’s hands are still shaking, and she struggles to dial on the cracked surface of her phone. It hadn’t been cracked before the explosion. At some point during the commotion she must have…
Hi, you’ve reached K—
“Fuck Kara, pick up,” she growls.
“I’m sure Kara is fine, Miss Luthor. If I could just—”
Lena whips around to snap at the other woman with renewed vigor. Her eyes are misty and full of tears, and Supergirl’s confident pose wavers around blurry edges. “If you’re so she’s fine, Supergirl,” Lena hisses, her face pulled into a snarl, “then find her.”
Lena Luthor doesn’t cry at many things. Her father’s funeral (though some sinking part of her wonders if maybe that had all been for show, a combination of peer pressure and her mother’s harsh and judgmental gaze); when her pet hamster died when she was ten; when she watched Marley & Me with Kara two months ago (because who wouldn’t, honestly?) but she doesn’t…
She didn’t cry when Lex went to prison; didn’t cry when she found out about her mother’s deception; didn’t cry when her first boyfriend cheated on her, or when she broke up with her first girlfriend; didn’t cry when she failed that one math class in college; didn’t cry at the countless death threats she received (still receives, honestly).
But she…
She can’t lose Kara. She can’t. She won’t.
She’s worried.
She wants to cry.
“I’m…” Supergirl blinks a few times and clears her throat. “Yes ma’am.”
Lena takes a deep breath and dials Kara’s number once more.
Hi, you’ve—
~~
“Kara.”
Kara’s never heard her name sound that way before. She’s heard it said in practically every way imaginable (anger, as Eliza scolds her for not being careful enough with her heightened abilities; excitement, as she tells Alex about her first job after graduating college; ecstasy, being ripped from lovers’ mouths; confusion, as she does or says something inexplicably weird around a coworker or classmate or professor).
She’s never heard it like this before.
Like… a prayer. Like a relief.
(She's heard her other name spoken with such reverence, but Kara Danvers isn't Supergirl. And hearing it now... it throws her, just a bit.)
Her eyes meet Lena’s through the still-crowded streets (and Kara had just seen her, she knows Lena is fine; had already held her in her arms and scanned her body for blood or injury… but she hadn’t done any of that, either. Because Supergirl had done it. And they aren’t… they aren’t exactly the same person).
Kara takes a breath and strides as quickly as she can through the crowd, her hand rising unbidden to brush her glasses farther up the bridge of her nose.
Lena meets her halfway.
When they embrace, it’s like a sweet respite from the chaos around them. Lena buries her head in the crook of Kara’s neck, and Kara wraps one arm around Lena’s waist and uses the other to cup the back of her head, holding her close and tight.
“Thank God,” Lena whispers against the collar of her shirt. “I was so worried.”
“Me too,” Kara says quietly. “Me too. I’m so glad you’re alright.”
She takes a step back, holds Lena at arm’s length. “Do you know what happened?”
Lena shakes her head. “I know probably less than you do… Everything happened so fast.” She says.
Kara nods and glances up and down her body (again), assessing her (again) for injuries. “Are you really alright?”
Lena has a smudge of something dark on her left cheek (grease, or dirt maybe? Kara can’t tell); her hair is mussed and disheveled; her dress is a little tattered at the edges; and one of her knees is bleeding a slow and steady stream down her right leg.
Kara blinks. “You’re bleeding,” she says, almost helplessly.
Lena glances down and shakes her head. “Just a scratch. I’m fine.” She must recognize the look on Kara’s face because she has to laugh, momentarily. “I promise Kara; I am fine.”
“Okay… okay. Yes. You’re fine.” Kara takes a breath. She wants… Rao, she doesn’t know what she wants. She wants to leave here. She wants to grab Lena and whisk her away from the debris and the destruction and the risk and just…
But she has to stay. She can’t go too far. Alex might need her (might need Supergirl).
She shakes her head and continues, “Is everyone else okay? Is Jess…?”
“She’s fine. I found her ten minutes ago. She’s shaken up, but she’s fine.” Lena laughs again, though it’s low and hardly filled with mirth. “I don’t pay her enough for this,” she says, almost as an aside under her breath.
“You pay her plenty,” Kara protests softly. “Besides, she loves working for you.”
“She handles my schedule and answers my calls, hardly something to love.” Lena pauses then, her eyes widening.
She reaches out and smacks Kara on the upper arm (it doesn’t hurt, but Kara grabs the spot anyways).
“Ow!” She exclaims. “What was that for?”
“I was calling you and calling you. Thirteen times, Kara!” Lena’s eyes are bright with fire and sharp with anger. She is genuinely mad at Kara (which is not a normal occurrence) and Kara finds herself swallowing nervously despite herself (she has superpowers, she’s a superhero; this kind of stuff shouldn’t scare her).
“Thirteen times?” Kara blinks and feels the guilt slowly filling her stomach.
“Why weren’t you… Kara you can’t just…” The anger — which had flared so rapidly and so unexpectedly — dissolves just as quickly. Lena’s hands are shaking (Kara has only just noticed), and she grips her phone in her hand like it’s the only thing tethering her to the world.
Kara remembers her face, remembers the tears pulling behind her eyes, remembers that Lena was crying over her, and the guilt feels suddenly much, much heavier.
She gulps and takes a step forward, pulling Lena to her again. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
Lena clutches desperately at the back of her sweater. “You weren’t picking up your phone,” she says quietly, face hidden against Kara’s shoulder. “I’m not apologizing, either,” she adds, almost as an afterthought. “Calling thirteen times is perfectly acceptable when one of us could be in danger.”
They pull apart and Kara reaches up and swipes an errant tear away from Lena’s flushed cheeks. “What did we say, Kara?” Lena asks quietly, turning her head and placing a soft kiss to Kara’s palm. “When things blow up, when aliens attack the city… you call me, okay?”
Kara leans her forehead against Lena’s (to reassure her, ostensibly, but she knows in her heart that it’s because she doesn’t want to look her girlfriend in the eye while she lies to her face). “I’m sorry. I didn’t think… I left my phone at the office after I saw the news, and I didn’t… I’m sorry. I forgot.”
Lena laughs in spite of herself, shakes her head and brushes her nose against Kara’s. “You’re always forgetting things, aren’t you?”
Kara swallows the bile in her throat and rubs at the back of her neck to giver her hands something to do. “I’m a forgetful person,” she says with a shrug, feigning nonchalance. “It’s my fatal flaw.”
But she knows that isn’t true. Even now, as she skirts around outright lying to her girlfriend, her stomach sinks with the heavy lead of her words.
Her fatal flaw has been, and always will be, secrets and lies.
Her words are like tinfoil: bright and shiny and reflective, meant to distract and disarm. But even as the sun gleams off of them, refracting off of her radiant personality, they cover up the truth.
This is, after all, her life.
Deception is the name of the game.
Always has been, always will be.