Chapter Text
It had been three weeks since Lena Luthor had let her mother believe she could get caught up in the family madness. Three weeks since that bitter day.
That was the day Kara had lied to her. So, on that fateful day her heart was already a little broken before Supergirl came in with her questions, accusations really. Lena’s natural reaction had been to lash out. She was cursed by the name that she didn’t even carry by right of birth but rather through a life of pain.
The cackling villain her mother had become no longer surprised her. Frankly she was more shocked that her mother could think she would help her. Yet, that night that she was so hurt that surely this is why her act was easy to believe.
So that night she punished everybody around her: her mother, Supergirl, the police who tried to talk her afterword, nobody was safe from her pain. Supergirl tried not to flinch when she shouted out “Why not? I’m a Luthor.” She had seen it.
The brunette supposed the police had not deserved her pain induced wrath Lena had wrought but she didn’t have any emotion left. At the time she knew it would not help her reputation. However, watching yet another Luthor attempt mass-murder over a large city wasn’t exactly the best PR for L-Corp.
Lena thought of her mother. At least they wouldn’t have to fake a mother daughter relationship any longer. It’s hard to have a decent mother-daughter relationship when you sentence your mother to a life in jail.
So now, here she stood, alone on her balcony staring out at a city who full of people who would be happier to see her gone. She was a Luthor who might one day go crazy and kill their Blue and Red Super, The Girl Scout. Lena took another sip of her wine and closed her eyes. She knew that wasn’t fair. She respected Supergirl, mostly. She didn’t prefer to call anybody by some kind of pseudonym this was true. Yet the young woman did nothing but show up at the right time and save Lena’s life. Even when the hero came in asking about Lillian, Supergirl tried to make Lena understand she didn’t believe the CEO was involved in Cadmus, that she knew Lena was good.
Lena had been convinced that Supergirl saying that was a lie of the greatest order, a calculated deception. Yet, Lena would prove to herself she was good. If it was true, if Lillian was trying to set up this horror, Lena would put Lillian behind bars herself.
Too bad Kara had not been so honest and upfront. She might have listened to Kara. Yet the reporter had lied. Lied to her, left her and never came back.
It had been three weeks and Lena had not seen the woman she had started falling for before all of this began. Lena had thought Kara had felt the same, but now she knew better. Even the Super had come back that night. Lena sighed and finished her wine. She corrected her own thoughts. Supergirl really didn’t deserve to be a pawn in her heartbreak. She would not do that.
Supergirl at least had the kindness to come and check on her. The hero had hugged Lena and told the CEO about her own familial disappointments. Lena knew it was an olive branch yet she didn’t know if she wanted to take it. How did one start a friendship with a hero? Shine a light in the sky like they did in Gotham? No.
Yet Lena was sure that Supergirl would answer it. Unlike Kara who hadn’t returned any of her calls. For weeks now, Kara had ignored her calls, her texts and her emails.
Lena reached out for another bottle of wine and changed her mind. She was going to go lose herself in a wall of bodies, somewhere she wouldn’t be easily known. She’d heard Jess talking about some hot new club. She’d have her driver take her. Surely he would know where it was.
***
Ironically, the night after Lena Luthor had saved all of the aliens in National City, a splinter group of Fort Rozz aliens that Non had left behind on purpose before preparing for Myriad had come for Kara. The tired blonde had just returned from Earth One to the DEO to tell her friends and family of her adventure.
None of the aliens downtown were Kryptonian; they all resented Kara, not to mention Alura, Astra, Non and her entire race. They came armed with Kryptonite knives and arrows. Landing in the middle of National City and terrorizing everybody, they had killed dozens of people before Supergirl and J’onn got there, with the DEO and NCPD trailing behind.
Once Kara and J’onn arrived it was obvious that all that they wanted was Kara, so she flew up into the sky hoping to lead them to the desert and most of the aliens followed. J’onn stayed behind with the rest of the terrorists making some progress until the DEO squads could get there to help him. He was about to go find Supergirl when several of the aliens who had been chasing her returned without her.
He was the only super powered good guy left. There was that Guardian guy who he held his own. Then NCPD’s elite supernatural task force showed up with well placed snipers armed with a variety of bullets, including elephant tranquilizers. Those seemed to do the trick with most of the aliens. J’onn and the DEO took the others down.
Shortly after that J’onn flew in search of Kara who was not responding on the comms. He found her in the desert, face down and riddled with Kryptonite weapons. Most had avoided vital organs, but she was dying nonetheless. He bellowed her name before he got to her which turned out to be a mistake as one enemy was left and he had to fight her too. However, his anger was so severe he simply phased his arm through the alien’s chest, phased back in while in there and ripped out the organs in her chest. He left her there and ran to Kara. Ripping out what Kryptonite he could, leaving things like arrows and the knife in her chest he picked her up and flew her back to Alex and Eliza faster than he had ever flown.
It was touch and go. She died a couple of times and he would give her chest compressions. Because of the kryptonite poisoning, they could even shock her heart back into rhythm at first. Then she stabilized enough for Eliza, Alex and the DEO medical staff to finish extracting all the kryptonite and make quick fixes to the damage it had caused. After that they all waited and watched as she stayed unbearably close to death, despite the sun lamps.
White as a sheet, lips blue, heart rarely beating and barely breathing, she was still for two weeks. Alex was at turns angry at Kara and wailing in despair in the room with Alura’s hologram, begging her for answers. Even Clark stopped by and stayed a few days until some of Gotham’s criminals escaped into Metropolis and he had to return. Eliza was a rock in front of the others, but J’onn could hear her despair so loudly, even as he tried not to listen. Everybody came and went even as they had no idea if she would wake.
Fifteen days in, Kara’s regenerative abilities abruptly kicked in. Later she woke up dazed and confused but no worse for the wear; although Mon El was shortly after.
When she had woken up he had been at her side, professing his love and telling her he needed her to understand she would be his mate so he could protect her. After the long time under the sunlamps, she didn’t have an awareness of her strength and had tossed him all the way across the DEO before anybody could blink.
Winn had convinced him that discretion was the better part of valor. That he would be better off falling for somebody more available, like James and Winn had been trying to tell him all along.
***
Kara wasn’t sure if she was up to this but since everybody was so insistent, she was determined to put on a good act and be there for her friends, her family.
So here was most of her little family, the “super friends”, heading into an “awesome, hot club” that Maggie thought they should try. James’ position assured the whole group entrance into the crowded club.
Winn was thrilled and whispering up a storm to Kara, knowing nobody could hear him but her. Mostly he was being goofy, but he had a couple of randy suggestions for some of the women he saw and after one particularly funny one she guffawed and smacked him on the shoulder. He yelped and slinked away.
“You didn’t hurt Winn did you?” Alex said worriedly.
“No,” Kara answered and pointed to him already chatting up a cute tiny little brunette. He was putting on a good act and having fun. “He’s going to be out on the dance floor before you two.”
“Oh no, I cannot have that!” Maggie said. “Come on Danvers.” Maggie grabbed a smiling Alex’s hand and dragged her out onto the crowded dance floor.
This left Kara and James to stand next to the bar without the rest of the group. He ordered two of some drink and moved a little to conceal what he pulled out of his jacket. He showed Kara a tiny flask.
“Mon El didn’t think he could endure seeing you have fun without him, but he wanted you to have fun anyway. He said a few drops to a human drink should be enough to make it pleasant but not overpowering,” James explained. “You want to try?”
Kara eyed the flask. The last time she drank with Mon El she had gone from zero to drunk in 5 seconds. Yet, she knew he was now more seriously concerned about her.
“Two drops, no more,” she answered James.
He handed her the doctored drink and started catching her up on what had been happening at CatCo while she was out. Nobody liked to talk about how close she had come to dying so they danced around it by talking about their own lives and making her laugh.
***
“Oh Rao, no! He didn’t!” Kara exclaimed and began laughing in earnest.
“Yes, he did,” James said his eye lighting up, his dimples fully on display.
Kara remembered why she was attracted to him. His was pretty like this. She shook her head, realizing she must be “buzzing” because she didn’t feel drunk, but that was a bizarre thought. And it was just too easy to laugh. Yet she still couldn’t believe she thought he was ‘pretty’. Thank god she hadn’t said that out loud. Or had she? He was looking at her funny.
“You know, I think you owe me a dance,” he said, almost kindly.
“James,” she started to reply, worried.
“It’s not like that, Kara. We’re better as friends, I know that now. But I would have liked one dance with you, just as a friend,” he said gently. “Do I have to find some Red Kryptonite?” He joked.
“Hey!” She swatted his shoulder.
“Yep, felt something like that,” he faked a wince and laughed then grabbed her hand to pull her out on the dance floor, near Maggie and Alex.
Kara let herself relax for the first time in days.
***
Lena tried to walk anonymously through the crowd, but she could never be entirely anonymous. She would always get startled looks of recognition. No matter. She would see if there were private tables overlooking the dance floor. She would enjoy that.
Just as the bartender handed her drink to her, she glanced at the dance floor and saw somebody who looked a lot like Kara’s sister, Alex. She walked slowly in that direction and found that truly, it was Alex dancing very familiarly with a shorter woman.
‘Good for her,’ Lena thought.
Then she noticed the vision dancing in a blue dress behind and to the left of Alex: Kara Danvers smiling up at a very handsome, very tall man. They laughed at some joke and he spun her. Suddenly Kara stopped herself, her expression puzzled and began to look around. She took one step towards Lena even as she was still looking around and then their eyes and connected. Lena couldn’t take it, that innocent look on Kara’s face even as the man reached out towards her confused by her actions.
Lena spun on her heel, deposited her drink hastily on the bar and practically ran out of the bar.
***
Kara was enjoying dancing and laughing with James. About the time he spun the blonde around she noticed a very familiar heartbeat. Even as she stopped herself and looked around the heartbeat sped up, thumping loudly, the sound of fear. A sound she had heard more than once: Lena, scared.
When she finally found Lena, their eyes only connected for a moment and just like that Lena was running away. She started to run after her when James called out to her.
“Kara, what’s wrong?” he asked.
“I saw Lena,” she said faintly. “She looked scared, upset.”
“Oh. You haven’t had a chance to talk to her since…” James trailed off, and Kara shook her head. “Weren’t you guys getting kind of closer?” Kara nodded. “Then why haven’t you seen her?”
“After I replaced my phone and got my voicemail working again,” Kara sighed, “I found she had left a lot of voicemails, and by the end, she didn’t sound very much like she liked me. Her texts and emails were… not so nice.”
“Ah,” he said with understanding. “That is tricky.”
She bit her lip and fiddled with her glasses nervously. Her shoulders slumped down and she told him, “I don’t really feel like being here anymore. Please tell everybody I’m sorry.”
Before James could do anything she was gone.
***
Lena’s driver dropped her off at her building and she told the doorman to make sure she had no visitors as she barreled past him and into the elevator.
When she arrived at the penthouse, she finally broke down. She made it no further than her couch and curled up to cry. She couldn’t get the image of a smiling and laughing Kara dancing with that man out of her head. She cried so hard for what she thought she had until the Luthor name took it all away again. She cried for the shame of letting herself want; she knew better. She cried until she was exhausted and fell asleep where she lay.
Unbeknownst to her, the object of her thoughts floated just out of reach, and cried with her.
***
When Kara got back to work a couple of days later Snapper was not the least bit kind to a person who had “gotten shot in a mugging in Gotham” and was in a coma for two weeks. Others around her were, but he just wanted her to get back in action.
“Ponytail, I need your special brand of whatever it is you do,” he said sarcastically. “Get over there to that Luthor chic and get a quote. Nobody else can. Don’t come back without one.”
“M-Me!?” she stammered.
“Yeah, y-you. She always talks to you and nobody else, so go, schmooze or whatever,” he growled. “But get me a story about whatever the hell happened at the docks, from her point of view; family feuds, whatever.”
***
Kara was nervous about seeing Lena, but knew it had to happen eventually, so she bit the bullet and headed over to L Corp tower. As she headed into the lobby, she waved to her favorite guard, Kevin, heading for the elevators.
“Ms Danvers!” He yelled and ran after her.
“Kevin I told you to call me Kara,” she said with a smile.
He looked down, embarrassed, and then looked back up at her seriously. “Ms Danvers, there’s no press allowed any longer.”
“But, Lena said I could come up any time,” she said dumbfounded.
“No,” he seemed sad. “She said especially you.”
This rocked her back on her heels like she’d been hit with a kryptonite hammer.
“Oh, well,” she stuttered some. “Thanks, I guess. Take care, Kevin.”
She turned around and tried not to appear to be fleeing, but she was and she knew it.
***
Lena’s day was largely underproductive. She could spend several hours as fiercely focused as she ever was, and then suddenly be sucked back into thinking about something about Kara Danvers. She wished she had the ability to forget the girl, but that would be especially difficult now that she knew how beautiful she looked in that blue dress, how happy she looked in that man’s arms.
Now, what was she supposed to be doing? Ah yes, the conference call with a prospective Japanese investor.