Chapter Text
There was one more person than usual there, but the bar felt lonelier than ever. That was all Lena really noticed about it. The bar was packed and it was a Friday night and Mon-El was suddenly back, but Lena wasn’t sure she wanted to come this group meet up next week. Lately she had been attending the get togethers with Kara’s friends every week, but things were different now. Mon-El was back now. No matter what way Lena tried to spin it, Kara didn’t need her around as much when Mon-El was there. Or Mike. Lena didn’t know what they were calling him nowadays, she just knew that the most selfish part of her wished he hadn’t come back.
Don’t get her wrong, she was happy for Kara. Fuck, was she happy for Kara, but she was sad for herself. Kara had all these people. She had Winn and James and J’onn and her sister, but Lena had Kara. She wished that that wasn’t the case and she wished there were more people she had let into her life leading up to this moment, because maybe then she wouldn’t feel so fucking alone in the world, but it wasn’t. She had Kara and Kara had Mon-El. It wasn’t any more complicated than that.
She thought her and Kara were finally becoming good again and being open, like they used to be. She thought Kara was finally moving on from him. She could see the sun on the horizon.
Watching her at the bar sitting on a stool beside Mon-El made it clear that Lena had been dead wrong about where Kara’s mind was at. Kara Danvers was finally smiling and laughing again. She was lively. Lena hadn’t missed Mon-El, but she missed that lively version of Kara more than ever. Suddenly Kara had hope again, a hope that no one else could provide her. Lena saw that. She didn’t like that, but she saw it nonetheless.
“Well, you two are the life of the party,” Winn tried to pull Lena back to Earth, only causing her to look around to see who the second person was.
She focused on a mopey looking Alex and let her gaze fall with a little bit of shame. Alex had just left her fiancee. That was something to be sad over. Lena couldn’t help but feel awful being so sad over something so happy. Mon-El was back. He was back. But no matter how many times Lena listed off all the reasons why that was so great, she still felt devastated over it. Maybe it was selfish of her to want Kara to want her instead, but she did. Call her selfish, because she would do anything to make that happen.
She didn’t think she had a crush on Kara - not at first. She had always been curious, wondering if maybe she was gay. She had almost experimented a few years prior, but her responsibilities had taken over for her before she got the chance. Before she was summoned to be a CEO of LutherCorp, her brother was still running the company and her mother wasn’t running a terrorist organization yet. She had started talking to a girl, just mindless flirting on a dating app. Lena wondered for years if those butterflies she had gotten at reading sweet texts were due to a cute girl being nice to her or from being nervous she was seriously considering dating a girl. She didn’t know if it meant she was gay or anxious about possibly breaking societal norms.
Then she met Kara. She was definitely gay.
Their first meeting wasn’t anything spectacular. Hell, Lena didn’t even realize she was attracted to her until months later. Looking back she had been infatuated upon first sight. One look at her in that stupid pink cardigan and Lena wanted to be her friend. That’s what it came across as. She didn’t want to date Kara and she most certainly didn’t want to like Kara in that way, but she wanted to know her so badly. She wanted to sit with her and hear stories and exchange stupid jokes. She wanted to make Kara feel good more than anything.
Over the months that had shockingly became reality. They had become friends - best friends, actually. Lena didn’t even know what having a friend was like until she had Kara walking alongside her. She had taken Lena under her wing and fought for her. Lena wasn’t sure Kara even knew how much that meant to her, it had just happened. And as that happened Lena had unwillingly fallen harder than ever.
“Yeah, well, rough week,” Alex grimaced, downing another shot of tequila.
“Pool?” Winn asked her. “You like pool.”
She shook her head. Winn looked to Lena, but she declined as well. He turned to James as a last resort. He looked between Alex and Lena which only seemed to make Alex incredibly annoyed. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Lena will watch her,” Winn volunteered with a shrug and the two guys scooted out of the booth.
“I don’t need a babysitter!” Alex protested again. “You guys, I am fine. Maggie and I are done and, yeah, so it stings a little, but I have you! I have you guys, so I’ll be fine!”
Winn nodded, but it was filled with clear signs that he didn’t believe that exasperated speech as James just looked at Lena. She silently agreed to the silent plea to keep an eye on the girl she was ninety-nine percent still wouldn’t trust her watching a goldfish.
When they were gone, Lena went back to twirling the thin straw in her drink, watching ice cubes spin around in her cup and occasionally glancing at Mon-El and Kara who had been away from their group all night. She let out a small sigh, feeling more defeated than ever at the sight of Kara happy. She hated that. She loved seeing Kara happy, she just couldn’t stand that it wasn’t with her.
“You’re quiet tonight,” Alex finally broke the silence between them.
Lena looked up to meet her eyes, smiling a little despite feeling like she wanted to nap for three years. “I guess. So are you.”
“It’s the whole broken heart thing,” she muttered. “You?”
There was no way she would ever tell her, Kara’s sister, the real reason, so she simply shrugged. “Long week. Running two companies is harder than it looks.”
“It looks hard.”
“It’s harder,” Lena quipped in less than a second.
Alex leaned back and laughed at that, nodding her head. “Well, hopefully next week will be better for the both of us then.”
“I hope so,” she agreed. She looked up to the bar, her eyes almost unable to peel themselves away from that captivating smile. “At least one of us is happy, right?”
The older Danvers followed her gaze and smiled at the sight of sister. “Yeah, that’s true.”
But Lena saw the way her eyes raged with fire and she watched that smile fall just as quickly, which only worried her.
“Is everything okay?” she asked with sudden worry in her voice at the sight of Alex’s displeasure. “Is she okay?”
“It’s great for her, I just don’t like him,” she told Lena bluntly and casually. Lena attributed it to the alcohol taking over, because Alex hadn’t discussed Kara with her at all until this point. “She’s too good for him.”
“Well, she’s too good for anyone,” Lena proclaimed knowingly. “We both know that.”
Alex looked at her with a hard gaze for another twenty seconds, scrutinizing every aspect of her before relaxing. “If you screw her over and try to kill her I’ll be pissed, because you even have me believing you’re good, Luthor.”
“I’m not Kara’s level of good, but I try,” she grinned a little.
The other girl almost smiled back. “Yeah, me too.”
“You’ll find someone too,” Lena hoped she wasn’t overstepping boundaries. “I mean, hopefully you have better taste than your sister over there, but you will. You’ll find the version of Maggie who wants kids.”
Beginning another glass of tequila, Alex closed her eyes as it went down her throat. When she opened them there was doubt. That was new for Lena to see.
“Do you think I made a mistake?” she asked unsurely. “Breaking up with Maggie, I mean. Do you think I should’ve been more understanding?”
“I would’ve done the same thing,” Lena promised her. “There’s no doubt in my mind that I’d make the same choice as you. You’ll be alive a long time and feeling something missing every time you saw a cute kid?” Lena grimaced. “That’s a lifetime of pain.”
“I know,” she looked down with tears in her eyes. “I just thought she was the one.”
“It taught you what you want, though. And what you need,” Lena thought of the only positive thing she could. “It gave you a better idea of who you need to find and what deal breakers are for you. Love is made of compromises, not sacrifices.”
She watched Alex think the words through. “You can’t compromise on a kid.”
“You can’t, that’d be a pretty huge sacrifice,” Lena agreed with sincerity. “Deal breakers consist of the mountain-sized sacrifices.”
Lena held her breath, unsure if she was saying the right thing. She didn’t feel prepared for this heavy of a conversation. Kara wouldn’t even utter Mon-El’s name throughout her break up, yet here Alex was, a girl she only knew through mutual interactions with Kara, two drinks past drunk and pouring out her soul.
“I can’t argue that,” Alex pointed to what was supposed to be Lena but the direction of her finger was a little too far to the left. “You’re not wrong, though. I don’t want to talk about it anymore, but I have one last question for you regarding her.”
Letting out a breath of relief, Lena smiled, welcoming any question that came as long as it was the last one. “Go for it.”
“You’re not gay, are you?” she asked with all the casualness in the world. “Maggie always thought you were, but I said no way.”
For a moment she considered being honest. She considered acting like she had had too much to drink as well or like convincing herself that Alex wouldn’t remember this come morning. Alex was gay, so she knew that her coming out as gay would be accepted, but she was Kara’s sister and Kara was her best friend - who she was a little too into for someone who was just her best friend. More than that, even with the space that had undeniably been between her and Kara the past few months, Lena would feel guiltier than ever if she told Alex before Kara. Kara was there for her when no one else was. Alex was only there for her in a dark bar while she was drunk and Lena was sad.
“No way,” she managed to force a laugh as if the idea was ridiculous. “I just don’t have time to date right now. Not to mention that my last name scares everyone away.”
“At least I was right about something,” Alex laughed a little for the first time. “I figured Kara would’ve told me if you were. You’re her favorite person to talk about.”
“Hopefully for good reasons,” Lena mumbled.
Her sister rolled her eyes at that, tilting her head with challenge. “Is it even possible for Kara to get mad at you? C’mon.”
Alex raised to hand to wave over another glass of tequila, but Lena softly placed it back on the table. “I think this is why they asked me to babysit you. I’m cutting you off.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Alex swatted her away. “I just need to be drunk right now.”
“Alex-“
“I’m fine, Lena!” she insisted as an order, her voice getting louder at the idea of not getting anymore alcohol for the night.
“No, you’re not,” Lena still argued softly, meeting Kara’s intrigued eye from across the bar. “You need to go home.”
Lena tried to wave the situation away to Kara who was clearly contemplating getting up. She was trying to act as if nothing was going on, but Kara started walking over with crinkled eyebrows and concern.
When she was by their table Lena was talking before Alex could. “We’re fine here, you can-“
“Tell her I don’t need a babysitter, Kara,” Alex interrupted and smiled at her sister with innocence, knowingness and full confidence that she’d be backed up. “You know me.”
“They just cleared half of the shot glasses that were here away and there’s still that many empty ones,” Lena explained the entirety of the situation, pointing to the collection of multiple empty glasses. “I was just getting worried about her. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, Lena,” Kara smiled graciously as Lena suddenly felt light and at ease again.
Kara was happy with her and Lena had realized a long time ago that her, the multi-billionaire, was the equivalent of a puppy dog pleasing a human. And Lena was quite all right with that. She felt a little pathetic, but at least there was something - or someone - who made her feel alive and appreciated.
“You guys, I’m fine. I’ve had way more than this plenty of times before-“
“And landed yourself in jail, I remember,” Kara said with an edge Lena never would’ve pictured her having with Alex. “Let’s go, I’m gonna take you home.”
“I don’t need to go home, Kara! You aren’t my keeper,” Alex was suddenly speaking with a bite in her words.
Lena looked around to see James and Winn looking at the situation from afar. She honestly wanted to get up and let the sisters hash this out on their own, but she didn’t know how to do so without making an awkward exit.
Kara let out a heavy sigh, holding a hand out to stop Mon-El from interjecting when he approached them. She put a hand on her forehead, letting it stay there for a second with uncertainty of her next move before shaking her head and speaking with the same bite Alex had given her. “You’re going home, Alex.”
“You can’t order me around.”
They had a stare down, both of them holding hard gazes with the other before Kara spoke with a finality that Lena wouldn’t dare mess with if it were her in Alex’s shoes. “You’re going home by choice or by force, but you’re too drunk to stay here.”
“Yeah?” Alex’s eyes looked humored as they shifted slowly to Lena, then back to Kara with a challenge. “And how would you force me? I think we both know that I’m the one trained as a government agent. You’re a journalist, so tell me, how would you combat my fighting skills, exactly?”
Lena had never in her life seen Kara look so enraged by a challenge. She didn’t know if it was more concerning that she could look that angry or that she was that angry. To make it worse, it was with the person she loved the most in the world. Either way, she figured now would be a great time to step in.
“I can drive you home,” she quickly extended the offer to Alex, trying to break up the argument.
Kara was waving the idea away in an instant. “It’s fine, I can honestly-“
“It’s no problem,” Lena forced a smile to continue onto to the next part of the sentence. “Mon-El… I know you want all the time you can get with him. I got this.”
She watched as the boy she had sent into space snaked an arm around Kara’s waist and hated how much Kara seemed to brighten due to it. Still, she kept that smile on, trying to look happy at the sight that made her physically nauseous. She wanted that to be her. She wanted to be in Mon-El’s place so badly. She never thought she’d be one of those girls who longed for someone she couldn’t have, yet here she was, staring at Kara as if she was the blazing sun while Kara viewed her as just another element of the gigantic solar system she kept warm.
“She’ll be fine,” Alex told Kara with agreement in the plan and a peaked interest in Lena, who was beginning to feel insanely uncomfortable in this unfamiliar familial endeavor. “I’ll behave myself. She’s right, don’t ruin your fun for me.”
Kara looked wary, but eventually didn’t have a good enough argument for Alex not to go. She helped her drunk sister out of the booth and looked beyond nervous at the sight of Lena preparing to escort her home instead of herself, but she leaned in for a hug anyway.
“Low blow challenging my power in front of Lena,” Kara muttered into the hug as Lena pretended this was yet another remark she hadn’t been able to hear.
“You challenge me and you’ll always get challenged back,” Alex simply laughed, lifting the tense mood.
“Be safe,” Kara told her genuinely when they pulled away. She turned to Lena, looking grateful and sincere. “Call me if she gives you any problems.”
“I am a grown woman, Kara,” Alex reminded her. “We’ll be fine. I promise.”
Kara looked to Lena, emphasizing her previous words. “Any problems, Lena. I mean it.”
Alex took a step forward, stopping to adjust to her drunken center of gravity before continuing on with no problem whatsoever. Lena did have to say that she held her alcohol well. She was loose lipped, but she could still walk which Lena knew that she wouldn’t be able to do if she had the amount of booze Alex had consumed in her system.
Lena led Alex to her car, turning with a smile as she waited for the drunken girl to get in okay. “If you’re going to vomit please tell me to pull over.”
“This car is worth more than I have in my savings. I wouldn’t dare vomit in such a beauty.”
Once Alex shut her door Lena circled around to her side of the car, getting in to look at her hesitantly. “Are you too drunk to give me directions to your apartment?”
“I know where I live,” she rolled her eyes dramatically. “Turn right going out of the parking lot. You’ll be going straight for a bit.”
Lena nodded her head. She let the radio fill the silence at a low volume as she drove through the dark streets of National City at night. It was so lit up. She loved how this city looked all lit up. She loved how it actually felt like this was home. A place had never given her that sensation before.
“Are you sure you’re not gay?” Alex spoke up after they were a few blocks away from the bar.
Her heart started beating, but she kept her cool, trying to keep focusing on bright lights. “Yeah, why? Care to tell me something I don’t know?”
“I think you like her.” When silence filled the car, Alex clarified. “Kara. I think you like her.”
“You think - Kara?” she tried to laugh it off. “Oh, God, you are way off base. Kara is my friend. Nothing more.”
“And that’s how you want it to be?”
“Kara’s not gay and neither am I,” Lena managed to get out as if the first part didn’t disappoint her and the second part was true. “We’re just friends. Now, if you don’t mind this conversation-“
“I’m not done yet,” Alex told her bluntly. “You sure seem to dislike Mon-El a lot. You could barely say his name. Any reason for that?”
“I told you, it’s the same as your reason. I think she’s too good for him.” Alex rose her eyebrows, only causing Lena to groan. “In a friend way. That’s it.”
“So, what about Mon-El don’t you like, exactly?” Alex quizzed in a way that Lena knew she had to watch her words carefully. “Turn left at the next light.”
It wasn’t that Alex was being mean. She was actually being quite nice to her, but she also had her interrogation voice on and that wasn’t a good sign for Lena. Lena’s only goal was to walk out of the conversation without jeopardizing the only friend she had ever had. The problem was that to do that meant lying to a government agent who was trained to catch people being unhonest, which also meant she’d be lying to Kara’s overly-protective sister.
“I like that she likes him, but,” Lena stopped herself, taking time to contemplate her words. “Kara’s the best person I know. I don’t trust Mon-El to treat her as good as she should be treated. But at the same time, Kara was so hurt when he was gone. Now that he’s back I’m just glad she’s happy again. That’s all I’ll say on the matter.”
“I’m still not done,” Alex announced. “Turn left here again.”
Lena let out a sigh, her confidence in a positive outcome of this car ride dwindling down with each word that came out of Alex’s mouth.
“So, you’re glad she’s happy, but you’re not glad she’s happy with him?”
“She’ll realize she can do better eventually. I’m not that worried.”
“Are you better?”
She almost blew off a stop sign she was so caught off guard. “What?”
“Hypothetically speaking, if you were gay - just if - do you think you’d be better for her?”
“I’m not gay,” Lena repeated. “Not even hypothetically.”
“Why not? It’s just a hypothetical.”
“Until it turns into a theoretical,” she shot back at the challenge. “Don’t do this, Alex. I’m straight.”
She looked at her with that same analytical gaze before nodding and turning around to look out the front window. “I’m not trying to force you out of the closet. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not gay!“ she snapped.
“Sorry,” she winced at Lena’s tone. “I’m sorry. I’m drunk and single and just want good news. I’m not trying to be pushy.”
Now that quirked her interest. Since when was her potentially being into Kara good news? At the end of the day, Alex was only being friendly because she was drunk and lonely and needed someone to keep her company so that her thoughts wouldn’t eat her alive. Lena was okay with that. She was. But asking her to pretend like Alex would ever root for her and Kara to be together was too much of a lie to go along with.
“What do you mean you want good news? You literally only tolerate me for Kara’s sake and we both know it.”
“Don’t take it personally, I’m just… slow to warm up to people that are close to her,” Alex tried to explain her position. “Kara trusts everyone. It’s my job to figure out who’s genuinely as good as she says there are. Of course it took me a while to gauge you, look at your background.”
“I’m not my brother,” she wanted to snap again, but let the well-rehearsed words flow out gently. “I’d never hurt anyone. Not Supergirl, not Kara.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” Alex sighed. “I’m seeing things for what they are, okay? I’m coming around. It just took a while.”
The car was silent again until Alex fired yet another question.
“Do you know?”
Lena wanted to act as annoyed as she felt but she knew part of Alex couldn’t even help how chatty she was being. Hell, tomorrow morning it would probably be Alex who woke up most mortified by this conversation.
“Know what?” she asked warily.
“Supergirl’s identity?”
Lena could easily answer that question honestly. It was about time someone stopped taking her for an oblivious fool. “You two aren’t nearly as subtle as you think.”
Alex let out an airy laugh and nod. “Yeah, I figured you did.”
Lena once again had nothing to say, so she was relieved when Alex finally told her where to pull over. She parked the car which caused Alex to raise an eyebrow. “I didn’t invite you in.”
“I’m making sure you go in,” Lena shot back. “I’m not getting yelled at by Kara when I don’t personally see you inside and something happens to her drunk and vulnerable sister.”
“You’re impossible,” Alex rolled her eyes. “I’m fine.”
“I’m sure,” Lena nodded, opening her door and getting out of the car. “My point still stands that Kara would kill me if anything happened to you.”
“I think you’re the one person who Kara would kill for,” Alex brought up. “She couldn’t kill you even if she wanted to. Even if you did try to kill her she’d fight that it wasn’t really you somehow.”
Lena couldn’t help but smile at that, because Kara was the only person that that statement felt true with. “Yeah.”
“What I was saying before was that you and Kara… that’d be good news,” the older girl promised her, sincerity flowing through ever aspect of her. “I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, but you do look out for her. And you care - really care. That’s good news in my book.”
She had been doing absolutely fine until that point. She had been lying to a federal agent with ease about Kara and her sexuality, but that comment made her look away with solemness. “I care a lot, you’re right.”
Alex led them in to the apartment building before they headed to the stairs to go up. “I wish you’d be honest with someone about all of this. Even if it isn’t me.”
Lena was glad she was walking a step behind Alex to make sure she didn’t fall in her stupor, because she couldn’t help but tear up at the words filled with truthfulness and candor.
She thought about the words hard before they came out, deciding if she really wanted to say them. “It wouldn’t matter if I was gay. Things are how they are.”
“But they’re not how you want them to be,” Alex hummed, not picking up on the anxiety spurring through Lena’s mind. “What I learned in the past year, what Maggie taught me is that coming out is terrifying, but people might not leave you.”
“Maybe in your life,” Lena sighed. “I’m CEO to a multi-billion dollar company. I barely have friends, it’s pretty much just Kara and Sam by my side. I don’t have many people I can risk leaving.”
“Well, Kara won’t leave you, I can tell you that right now.”
She stood back as Alex fumbled with getting her key into the lock. Lena wondered if she looked as small as she felt, because she felt so, so small in this situation. Her voice came out meek and afraid and she hated that. Nothing made her feel as terrified as confronting the reality of her feelings for Kara.
“Would she stay even if you weren’t completely off base with what you said?”
To Lena’s shock, Alex didn’t even seemed surprised at the confirmation in the least. “She’s still friends with James and Winn, isn’t she?”
“That’s different,” Lena let out a soft smile. “They’re not a girl.”
“She has never stood up for anyone as much as she stands up for you. You’re special to her,” Alex told her as she finally got the key into the lock. “She isn’t going to leave you. I can guarantee it.”
Lena stayed silent, watching the door swing open, but not moving forward.
“You coming in?”
“No, no,” she shook her head, terrified upon the realization of what she had just confessed to Alex hitting her. Out of anyone to have this conversation with it shouldn’t have been Alex. “Are you gonna tell her?”
“It’s the gay code not to out people,” Alex gave a gentle smile. “You sure you don’t want to come in?”
“I just wanted to make sure you got in okay,” Lena stared distantly, unsure of what the next step was from her. “I’m really sorry about this.”
“About me being wasted or you liking my sister?”
Lena stayed silent and Alex shook her head, taking a step out of the apartment into the hallway again.
“You never have to apologize for your feelings. I hope you come to terms with that soon. Besides, as I said, I’d be rooting for you if you ever chose to fight for her. Hell, my money would be on you in a fist fight against him too.”
“He’s an alien, that’s an awful bet.”
“You have wits and a brain, I think you could do it,” Alex shrugged off Lena’s argument. “I’m serious. I’m here if you need to talk. One gay to another.”
Lena didn’t say anything, didn’t even twitch, just staring. She had never called herself gay out loud and wasn’t so sure she’d ever be able to do so. At least, not as comfortably as Alex was able to do. She knew the term fit, but it’d feel wrong coming off her lips as a self-description.
“You sure you don’t want to come in? You can stay the night if you don’t want to go all the way back across the city.”
She actually thought about the offer, but in the end shook her head. “No, it’s okay. I should get going. I hope the hangover isn’t awful.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Lena waved a hand through the air and ignored the mess her mind was in. “I’m good. I’ll see you around.”
Alex stared, but eventually went in the apartment, closing the door as Lena turned around to walk away.
She hadn’t told anyone she was gay, but she had never even planned to tell anyone she liked Kara. She had always thought that would be the secret she took to the grave. Maybe it was the small consumption of alcohol she had, maybe it was needing to get out the massive feelings that wanted to explode inside her chest everyday. Either way, she was stunned at what she had done.
She hoped it wouldn’t ruin the closest thing to family she had ever gotten.
Lena was at CatCo the next morning when she got a message from an unknown number. She frowned for a moment, but it made sense when she read it.
It’s Alex. Thanks for taking me home last night, I owe you one. And your secret’s safe with me.
She prayed to the God she didn’t believe in that that was the truth.