Archive of Our Own

The first time it happens, Lena walks into her L-Corp office, looking up from her tablet to see an enormous pyramid of water bottles smack dab in the center of the room, each stacked on top of one another, all the way to the ceiling. She considers it for a moment, then sighs irritably.

Great, she thinks. She has a prankster among her employees. Probably some intern who decided it would be funny to sneak in and find a wasteful use of company-provided resources. Or maybe some lame attempt at distraction to catch her off guard and finally get her assassinated.

In any case, the structural integrity looks wobbly at best, and she does not have the patience to deal with this situation, so she steps around it to sit at her desk, then phones for her assistant to get someone to remove the offending structure. The water bottles are gone by the end of the day.

--

It really says something significant when what it takes for Lena to finally put her work down is an eruption. An honest-to-god eruption of lava in the middle of her L-Corp lab.

She wasn’t even testing anything at all related to it.

Lena was just minding her own business, testing the vibrational frequency of the new earthquake-proof metal supports L-Corp was working on putting out, when an actual miniature volcano just appeared of fucking nowhere and spewed out some lava. They’re in the basement, thankfully, otherwise the lava probably would have dripped down, down, down through all the floors of the building until it finally reached the ground.

None of it got on any of her lab assistants (thank god) or her, but it certainly claimed the hunk of metal they were working with and basically reduced it to a puddle.

Definitely not volcano-proof, she notes in her lab notebook.

She honestly doesn’t really know what to do with it, eyeing it warily from afar as her team of scientists stand around it, scratching their heads.

The janitors definitely don’t get paid enough for this, she thinks.

They won’t be the ones dealing with the volcano, of course. It definitely isn’t within the boundaries of their contract, and a team of her best scientists are already getting to work on developing a way to transport it all out. But. A raise wouldn't hurt.

Everyone is still milling about when the volcano disappears into thin air, as abruptly as it came.

Like it was never there. Except the metal beam is still, unfortunately, a melted heap.

Why does shit keep happening to her? She hasn’t offended any deities or anything. At least, she doesn’t think so.

In any case, they all get back to work, after that. (Living in National City is weird after all, and everyone decides to just chalk the volcano up as such.) At least, Lena definitely does. The incident is out of sight, out of mind by the end of the week.

--

Until a few weeks later, when she wakes up on her couch face-to-face with a giant bird breathing on her head.

It’s an ostrich. An entire fucking ostrich. In her office. 

She shrieks, jumping off of the piece of furniture and backing up to the wall. The over-sized bird squawks in reply. Frantically looking for something to arm herself with, Lena sweeps her eyes around her office to see a variety of different animals loitering about in her now-trashed office. There are papers on the ground, chewed up, and her poor laptop is open face-down on the floor, neglected. A lion lazily naps on her table, the clear offender of the papers on the floor, and an anteater, of all things, meanders about before burrowing into a nest of probably-important documents that Lena still needs to sign.

“Holy fucking sh-”

She hears a whooshing of air and the rapid opening of her balcony door as someone invites herself inside in a hurried, almost frantic manner.

“Are you okay? I heard you scream and your heart is beating super fast and- woah.”

Yes, woah.

Her office is now the newest up-and-coming National City Zoo. Of course she’s okay. Everything is completely fine.

She’s barely slept three hours this week and L-Corp’s stock prices are still tumbling, what with all the chaos that her homicidal maniac of a brother had wreaked. Lex would probably be plotting various different ways to enact his revenge on her for shooting him in the chest if he were still alive. (Though if he asks her, he’s already dished out plenty of it by shattering her entire worldview with a single sentence.)

Kara Danvers is Supergirl.

“So uh… is this a new hobby of yours?” Supergirl starts awkwardly. “Collecting animals…? I mean, I know there are people who like to keep exotic animals, but I never expected you to be into that kind of thing, especially not keeping them in your office and-”

“Don’t act like you know what sorts of things I’m ‘into’, Supergirl, considering we’ve never been real friends in the first place,” Lena snaps. 

It’s dumb. And maybe a little petty. But mainly dumb, because she probably did know what sorts of thing she’d enjoy. Lena had shown all of herself, every facet of her being, to her in their supposed friendship, after all.

The blonde winces at that, looking like she wants to protest, but then seems to think better of it. She keeps her mouth shut.

“And no, I’m not keeping them. These animals-” Lena gestures to her room. “Just appeared out of goddamn nowhere.”

“Right… ok.”

The two of them glance towards her desk as the lion audibly shifts on it, letting out what appears to be a yawn, and then goes back to sleep.

Lucky bastard, Lena thinks.

“I’m hoping you have some sort of explanation as to why there’s suddenly a collection of wild animals in my office? The DEO certainly must keep track of anomalies, don’t they?”

Supergirl scratches her neck awkwardly as she regards the sight in front of her. The action is so Kara-like that Lena is again reminded of how foolish she was for not seeing the truth sooner. It stings. Badly. 

She seems to remember that she’s in her Supergirl outfit, then the fact that Lena knows now, all at once, as she places her hands on her hips then releases the stance in several stuttered motions. The stranger decides to clasp her hands in front of herself instead.

Lena tears her eyes away from the sight as Supergirl speaks.

“I don’t, but I can take the animals off of your hands and the DEO can look into what happened here.”

“Thank you,” she replies curtly.

Supergirl smiles slowly, tentatively at her. The blonde hums as she starts with the lion, tutting gently as it regards her lazily, and somehow gets the creature to allow her to hold it in her arms as if it were a giant dog. The ridiculous sight would be almost funny, Lena thinks, if she wasn’t so stressed about continuing her work and the state of the scattered documents on the floor and of course, the whole situation with-

As Supergirl jets off to god-knows-where, lion in tow, Lena rights her chair from where it was lying on the floor and begins to gather up the sheets of paper.

Supergirl returns a few moments later to pick up the anteater, then the ostrich, who puts up more of a fight than the previous two. Gremlin. Absolute gremlin.

Once all the animals are taken care of, and the super is gone, Lena sits down at her desk, breathing out a sigh. With her chair turned away from her desk, she regards the bright blue skyline outside of her balcony window for a long moment, before going back to work.

--

“Miss Luthor?” her assistant buzzes into her intercom. “The Catco reporter is here to interview you about L-Corp’s latest project.”

Oh god. Oh fuck. Oh god, no.

They had scheduled this interview months before now and Lena had somehow completely forgotten to cancel it.

It’s not too late to cancel now, is it? Or maybe she doesn’t have to cancel it at all. How high up is her office from the ground, again? Probably enough, she thinks. But she has paperwork to fill out, still. She doesn’t have time to be dead. Ugh.

Mindlessly wondering if she’s revoked a certain someone’s all-access pass yet, she fumbles with the device for a moment, before pressing the button. 

“Give me a minute,” she replies, hoping her voice doesn’t sound shaky.

Lena needs some time to weigh her options, damnit.

It seems like the woman knows that things definitely still aren’t okay. That Lena needs space and the option to turn her away, otherwise she could have just burst in. She’s grateful for that, at least.

She’s not really prepared to have a full-length, tearful conversation with her yet. Or any, really, though she got through their last one just fine, she supposes. Maybe a petty comment here and there, but it happened.

Lena’s just scared that the woman will try to bring up how sorry she is, again. She knows. She knows how sorry the kryptonian is, knows that maybe she really was sincere in the pursuit of her friendship. A part of her whispers that she was treacherous, that she never meant to be her friend at all. That her only want was just to keep an eye on a Luthor. But another part of her gently reminds her of the light, the goodness that Kara Danvers did bring into her life when she was still in it all the time. The belief in her. And Supergirl’s disbelief, another voice argues.

Just. Lena needs time. 

But it’s been far too long to turn her away now, right? And she saw her just a few weeks ago. It’s only one interview, they don’t even have to mention the elephant in the room. Just tiptoe around it while they’re talking about upcoming product launches. Not too hard, right? It’s fine. She can deal with this.

She takes in a deep, slow breath.

And presses the intercom button.

“Send her in.”

.
.
.

It’s not even her. It’s not even fucking Kara Danvers and she psyched herself out for nothing. Unless she dyed her hair red and did some major plastic surgery.

The mousy... woman? Girl?—honestly, she looks so young, she could probably be an intern—fidgets in the seat in front of her.

Lena stares her down, studying her. She could be her, with some cloaking technology or something.

The girl fidgets some more, lightly drumming her fingers on her chair with one hand and clenching her legal pad with the other in a death grip. Lena narrows her eyes. She knows it’s not her, though. She frowns.

Lena’s slightly relieved, to be honest. She doesn’t want to be confronted with the feeling that she should just forgive the super already. A small, maybe selfish, maybe self-destructive part of her wants to keep being angry, to hold onto her anger and let it consume and mask the hurt and the confliction she feels deep within her body until the ache fades. Until she can finally fucking breathe again, for god’s sake.

Pushing aside her thoughts, she takes pity on the girl and starts rattling off answers to her questions.

She tries not to think about how if her former best friend were in front of her and it were months before now, they would be cheekily bantering in between questions before she would be pulled over to the couch to eat whatever lunch the blonde had brought them, all pretenses of work forgotten.

--

Of course, because her life just has to be this complicated, another strange occurrence happens just two weeks later. And this time, it comes in the form of an entire office-full of red roses. Absolute cliche. And it isn’t even in the tactful way she did it to- ahem.

In this case, she had to push the door with all her weight just to get inside, and once the door was opened juuust enough, it was not a nice surprise to experience a faceful of thorny flowers (i.e. an entire wave of them fucking fell onto her.)

She sighs.

Another phone call and another strange side-glace from her new assistant later, her office is almost cleared of the red monstrosities.

There’s still a janitor or two milling about, packing the last of the roses into bags to be sent to the various Luthor Children’s Hospitals (Lena wasn’t going to just throw them away, that would be wasteful), when she spots the crisp slip of paper on her desk.

Peering closer over the card, she just gapes.

What the absolute hell.

Is this a joke? It has to be a joke.

In a large, loopy font, it reads:

Hey baby, thought you might need a pick-me up.

- Kara ;)

What the fuck??

Lena grits her teeth and assesses the situation. Considering everything that’s happened, K- Supergirl would have the nerve to literally fill her office with flowers (that aren’t plumerias, Lena can’t help but note with a tug in her chest) and send her a card with this message on it?? With a winky face??? They had one almost-civil conversation that didn’t end with one or both of them in tears and she thinks- A goddamned winky face of all things-

And baby???

She takes a breath. Would she, though? Maybe the card and roses are courtesy of whatever caused the animals to poof their way into her office. It’s so completely out of character, seems to go so completely against absolutely everything she knows about the woman. But did she even know her? At all? Lena would never have expected her to do something this distasteful. Then again…

She never expected Kara Danvers to be capable of doing what she did, either.

But she thinks back to a few weeks ago. Of sad eyes and hesitant smiles and fumbling hands, and comes to a decision. She tosses the card aside.

--

The weird shit seems to get more and more frequent by the day, it seems.

For one, she keeps bumping into furniture she swears were at least an inch over. And she keeps walking into her office to find a random object either miniaturized or mega-sized. 

What is supposed to do with an eraser the size of her fucking torso?? Or a chair that can rest on her fingernail?? (She sends them all to Ruby, who delights in all the weirdly-sized objects.)

And even worse, she keeps having to look for things she was sure she kept in a particular location, only to find them in a different, oftentimes bizarre one. (She found a stack of her paperwork in the breakroom fridge, once.)

Ugh.

It’s fine. Absolutely fine. They're just minor inconveniences. She can live with it.

Totally.

--

Lena would be thrilled, over the damn moon, if whatever is causing these inconvenient disruptions would quit it already and just come out and tell her what it wants from her. She has things to do, a billion-dollar company to run, and a single person she’s absolutely not trying to stop thinking about. It’s all very exhausting and these inconveniences aren’t helping matters. She’s just tired, okay?

Because she’s currently sitting cross-legged, hands gripping her ankles, waiting for Supergirl to come pick her up. From her position. In the fucking sky.

She’s so worn out from practically no sleep and back-to-back meetings with sexist old white men who think they know better and email after email flooding her screen that she doesn’t even try to think about the science or reasons behind how she’s currently defying gravity right now.

She was walking to L-Corp after picking up a coffee, when her feet suddenly stopped making contact with the ground and she just started floating up, up, up, and away. Like a balloon or something. A sad, depressed fucking balloon.

Her sudden buoyancy was met with loud gasps. Of course, Lena steeled her face into an expression of utmost calm at the people who stared up at her and started pointing fingers even as she internally panicked. Luthors don’t panic and she has a reputation to maintain.

She just accepted that that was her life now, that she had been on her way to the stratosphere to turn into a human popsicle, before she gradually stopped moving upwards. 

Honestly, Lena’s just glad she decided to wear a suit with pants today.

It’s a nice, sunny day, and it’s only moments after she flicks open the watch and presses the distress signal when she hears a whooshing below her. She watches Supergirl dart about, scoping out the streets below them, when she seems to catch the uptick in Lena’s heart rate and looks up at her. The knowledge that she’s listening to her heart rate makes it quicken even more. Lena meets her worried gaze, which relaxes when she sees her. Then turns worried again when she apparently realizes that Lena is midair with no visible source of support from anywhere.

“Lena...?” she breathes out in wonder. “How on Earth did you get up there?”

Her voice sounds so sweet and her eyes are so, so earnest that Lena feels her stomach flutter, despite it all. She blames it on the fact that she’s currently 100 feet off the ground. 

Oh god. 

She’s 100 feet off the ground, somehow.

“No clue,” she replies, voice tight. “Can you get me down, now? Please?”

“Oh! Of course.”

Supergirl floats over to her, hesitantly holding out her arms under Lena’s body. She looks at her, as if for permission. Lena nods once, stiffly. And then, her arms move upwards, and Lena feels the press of strong, steady arms as gravity appears to work on her again.

“Um… where to? L-Corp? Your apartment? It’s probably been a rough and kind of traumatic morning for you, so maybe I should take you ho-”

“L-Corp, please.”

Lena has documents to look over and meetings to attend to, still. The corporate world stops for no one. Even for those who find themselves inexplicably floated to the sky and then into the big, stron- the arms of one worried Supergirl.

The blonde looks like she wants to argue, but she sighs and acquiesces. They fly slowly to L-Corp, with the super checking in every now and then.

“Ok… this wasn’t some wacky science experiment gone wrong?”

“No,” Lena answers bluntly.

“Right… so… I think we know what, or who, caused this, then. And the animal incident.”

Lena hums. “Really?”

“Yeah, so the DEO managed to catch traces of fifth-dimensional energy in your office after the whole animal thing and-”

“What? You knew right after and you didn’t think to inform me of this?” Lena says, almost accusingly.

Supergirl winces. “I wanted to, but every time I flew by, you seemed busy and I didn’t want to alarm you or anything… Please understand.”

“...Alright,” she agrees easily. “And? What else did you find out?”

“The culprit is a fifth-dimensional imp named Mxyzptlk. Who has the ability to warp reality, sort of like, say, magical capabilities. He's given us trouble before… and now he’s back.”

“Really? And what does he want? To wreak havoc? Inconvenience me as much as possible?”

“Something like that first bit. But he wants to help in his own weird way, I suppose.”

“Hm.” The cogs in Lena’s brain turn, rapidly. “So I take it it wasn’t you who filled my office with roses and left a card signed in your name, then?”

“WHAT?” she gapes. Then goes bright red. “No I- that- that wasn’t me, no.”

She hears her curse the imp faintly under her breath.

“Interesting…” Lena says in reply. Tries to hide a smirk.

They’re suddenly moving faster than they were before. (Though that’s not saying a lot because they had previously been travelling at a snail’s pace, basically.)

“Well would you look at that! We’re here!” the blonde says, in a rush.

She floats them onto the L-Corp balcony, then slowly sets Lena down.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to take you to your apartment?”

Lena groans, low and drawn-out, as she stretches her limbs, before turning back to an even-redder Supergirl.

Very interesting, indeed.

“I think I’ll be alright. Thanks for the lift, Supergirl.”

The hero clears her throat. Smiles at her.

“Anytime, Lena.”

Then flies off, leaving a rush of air that blows gently across Lena as she watches her shoot off into the distance.

She then promptly remembers that she hadn’t asked what the super’s plan was with Myxpts- whatever his name was.

God.

--

To tell the truth, Lena hasn’t been able to get that damned smile out of her head ever since she saw it a week ago. It’s been an absolute curse for her productivity levels.

Lena is looking over the blueprints for a new prototype device when the sky—or rather, her office ceiling—opens up and starts pouring down a torrent of rain.

Why me, is all she can think.

She irritably grabs for the umbrella she keeps under her desk now, and opens it up, mindlessly thinking about how it’s apparently unlucky to open umbrellas indoors. 

Well, her luck can’t get any worse than this, anyhow.

She finds herself wrong a few days later.

--

The ostrich is back. The fucking ostrich is back, her mind repeats as she sits up from where she was napping on her very comfortable, hard desk.

And with a vengeance, she thinks, as it notices her looking at it and immediately decides to come eat her alive, or something.

Do ostriches eat people?

She doesn’t even care at this point, because the gremlin hooligan has seemingly decided to forgo eating her and has settled, instead, on the papers on her desk.

“Hey! Quit that, I need those.”

The ostrich has the audacity to look offended.

“Go… I don’t know… eat my floor mat or something.”

It tilts its head, staring blankly at her for a long, long time before-

“Ugh, fine.”

Lena opens up her drawer and digs around for the stash of granola bars she keeps for when she doesn’t have time to eat a proper meal. Which is always. So. She has plenty.

She opens one up, breaks it into little pieces in her hands, then tosses it all onto her pristine floor.

Ostriches can eat that, right?

Whatever. She needs to get back to work, and the ostrich seems content to pick at the granola bits on her floor. She’s hoping the food will keep it occupied for at least a few hours. Hence why she made sure to break the bar into itty-bitty pieces. 

Should she be calling someone right now? What is her plan? 

Eh. She’ll deal with it later. There’s work to be done.

All is quiet except for the faint sound of pecking and chewing. For a while, at least. She’s only finished typing up ten emails when the ostrich finishes its questionable meal and ambles over to Lena’s desk.

She ignores it.

The ostrich apparently didn’t like that. It huffs and comes to the other side.

“No.”

It squawks at her, then grabs at the laminated reference sheet she was using. A very important reference sheet, she might add. 

“Hey! Give that back, fucker!”

Lena, in a very intelligent move, grabs at it, and commences a full-on tug of war for the laminated sheet.

There’s still a wild flapping of wings and gritted teeth when the balcony door suddenly opens.

“Hey sorry to bother you, I just wanted to ask you somethi- Oh.”

Lena turns to see a very confused-looking Supergirl awkwardly standing by the entrance. Then looks around at her office, from the mess of her desk, to the various items in the room the ostrich apparently tipped over somehow (bastard), to the granola crumbs littered on the floor, then finally to the ostrich she is still very much in a tug-of-war to the death with.

“...Am I interrupting something?”

“No.”

The laminated sheet is snatched from her hands. She turns back to glare at the ostrich, but lets it be. For now.

“The ostrich is back,” Lena says, dumbly, facing her again.

“I… see…”

The ostrich decides it doesn’t want the sheet anymore and lets it drop to the floor. The nerve. The absolute nerve.

“I um. Came to ask you for help with something.” Supergirl says, hesitantly. She puts her hands on her hips, as if trying to draw confidence from the familiar pose.

“Well, is it a more pressing issue than this?” Lena gestures to the ostrich trying to eat her stapler.

“Uh… maybe not…?”

Lena has to bite back a smile at her dumbfounded confusion, which she absolutely cannot laugh at, no matter how… cute it may be.

The ostrich huffs behind her, probably to remind her of its presence. Why is it like this, she wonders.

“Ugh. Would you mind…” She gestures behind her, vaguely with her arms. “Taking it back to wherever you took it last time?”

“I can’t, sorry.” The decidedly not-hero shrugs apologetically. “The last time I carried wild animals around, it caused a really big ruckus. Alex says I can’t do that anymore. I’ll have to page for the DEO to deal with it.”

“So I’m stuck here trying to fend off an ostrich that may or may not eat me until they get here?”

Kara laughs at that, wide and unhindered. She seems to remember herself, and clears her throat.

“I don’t think ostriches eat people, Lena.”

“Well we can’t be sure, can we? Maybe this fifth-dimensional one does. Look at it. Its eyes have nothing behind them. Empty.”

The ostrich tilts its head at them.

The blonde snorts. “Yes, it’s positively terrifying.”

“Easy for you to say, you could lift this whole building one-handed and you’re a practically-indestructible superhero.”

“Well, I’m also a practically-indestructible superhero who happens to be standing right here and can fend off any carnivorous, human-flesh-eating ostriches for you,” she teases.

They go silent for a moment after that.

Then they’re saved by a call the Kryptonian evidently has, as she puts her finger up to the comm in her ear.

“Yeah, yeah, alright. I’ll be right over.”

She turns to Lena, smiling sheepishly.

“I have to go deal with this really quick, sorry. There’s a fire...”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” Lena waves her off.

“I’ll be back,” she promises. The hero is gone in a gust of wind.

The ostrich huffs behind her.

“Don't look at me like that.”

It huffs again, louder. And with more indignation than any ostrich has any right to be able to convey.

“What I said about you is true, and I refuse to take it back.”

Lena has no way of seeing Kara’s fond smile at that as she jets off to 85th Avenue.

--

When the super returns, covered head-to-toe in soot, several members of the DEO are already trying to wrangle the ostrich into the large cage they brought for it.

Kara, ever the ostrich-whisperer, immediately jumps in and successfully coaxes the bird inside.

They’re watching the agents wheel the cage out of her office and inspect for any further abnormalities when Lena suddenly remembers something.

“What was it you wanted to ask me earlier?”

“Uh… well…” Kara scratches at her ear. “I was wondering if you could help us reverse-engineer a toxin that seems to be a recurring bioweapon in this alien crime group and-”

“What? Why do you need my help with that? Alex could probably do that with her eyes closed and an arm tied behind her back. Maybe both arms.”

She smiles sheepishly at her. 

Lena narrows her eyes at the blonde. 

“You don’t actually need my help with anything, do you?”

Kara fiddles with her cape. 

“Not really. I just… I just wanted a chance to see you, I guess.”

They stay silent, allowing the words to permeate throughout the room, until they encompass the two of them completely, settling on them in a way that vaguely reminds her of the blanket that still remains draped over the otherwise empty couch in her living room. A soft, knitted thing left behind from quiet movie nights that she still can’t bring herself to get rid of, no matter how much it smells of old, faded memories that, even now, poke like little needles inside her chest.

She doesn’t know what to say to that.

Lena can argue uninformed, stubborn board members into embarrassed submission, she can single-handedly come up with scientific breakthroughs that help save the whole world, for god’s sake, but when she’s met with earnest, earnest blue eyes, she finds herself deeply at a loss. What is she even supposed to say in this situation? Ha, funny joke? I’m glad you did, because I was kind of hoping to get to see you again, too? Even when I kind of hate myself for it? Even when I’m still a little angry at you? When I don’t know how to even begin to fix things, even when we slip back to small moments of normalcy, when it sometimes feels like it’s fixed itself?

She doesn’t know what to say to that. She doesn’t.

Before she has the chance to respond, Kara speaks, voice stilted.

“I- I’m sorry that was- that was probably too much… I just miss you. A lot. And, and- I don’t know, it kind of feels like. Like I can’t properly breathe without you, in a way. I mean, I can! Don’t get me wrong, it’s not in an unhealthy way. But it just feels like you’re this infinite oxygen tank or something. Or a- a light that my metaphorical moth self is drawn to, all the time,” she spills out in one big rush.

“Can you feel it? Do you feel that? You’re- god, you’re my yellow sun, Lena. I can get by, it would be possible for me to physically live without you, but I would never want to because. Because when I’m around you, I feel like I can do anything.”

And Lena definitely doesn’t know what to say to that.

She’s rendered completely incapable of speech, at this point.

Meanwhile, Kara’s face goes through a multitude of expressions, ranging from realization of what she just said, then just plain mortification about saying all of it, to Lena, who is going through an equal amount of turmoil and has still not said a word this entire time.

“Rao, I am- okay, that was definitely too much. I’m sorry I dumped all of that on you, I’ll- um. I’ll be going now.”

And with that, she turns on her heel and jets out, leaving nothing behind but a gust of air and a horrendously conflicted Lena.

--

If Lena thought she was distracted before, she’s even more so now. She finds herself jittery all day, wondering if the super will return to talk about… whatever happened yesterday.

She supposes she could just call her, or text or something, but. She seemed rather mortified, and Lena would rather not force her to talk immediately.

After hours of being wholly unproductive, she decides that she’s had enough and packs up her work to take home. It’s 7:00 pm, a time when most people finish work, but she feels weird about it. She doesn’t think she’s left work this early since the last time Kara pulled her away for a game night. It feels strange. Almost, but not-quite foreign.

She comes home to a depressingly empty apartment.

Looking around, she can definitely see what Kara meant when she said her apartment looked “way too sterile, Lena! You need to get some color in here. Oh! And some knick-knacks, I’ll bring some the next time I come over. Maybe some houseplants if you have time to take care of them? I think one would look good over here, and ooh, maybe one over there…stop looking at me like that, Lena. Seriously, it’s all white in here. Just because you’re rich you doesn’t mean you have to live in a minimalist hospital-”

She’s beginning to regret getting rid of most of the things her apartment accumulated throughout her years of friendship with Kara. Little trinkets and books left behind every now and then, the things Kara dragged her out to go buy in order to “home up” her apartment. The things she didn’t toss out, she’s packed into boxes shoved deep, deep into a storage space somewhere.

After kicking off her heels and changing into more comfortable clothing (she opts for a cozy sweater), she decides to brew some tea on a whim.

A nice, rich blend left over from when she bought a package the last time she had a conference in Japan.

She’s filling her kettle with some water when she gets the text from Kara.

Hey, can we talk?

Lena picks up her phone to reply.

She hesitates for a second, before typing out her message.

Sure, she texts back. Not at L-Corp right now, though. I’m at my apartment.

She receives an Okay. I’ll be there in a few minutes in return, then waits expectantly as she sees the three dots pop up, indicating an incoming message. They disappear. Then reappear. Then disappear again, for good this time, it seems.

Lena puts her phone down to add more water to her kettle. 

Her phone buzzes with the appearance of a heart emoji a few moments later.

.
.
.

A knock sounds on Lena’s door ten minutes after her last text.

Lena takes a deep breath to steady herself, then strides over to open the door. Kara stands there, looking a little surprised, as if she somehow wasn’t expecting Lena to do so. She’s wearing her usual clothes this time, instead of her super suit, wringing her hands nervously.  

“Hey,” Kara whispers, softly.

“Hey.”

Lena turns around and walks to her kitchen.

Kara tentatively follows her inside and closes the door gently behind her.

“So I just wanted to start off by saying-”

Lena holds out a cup of tea to her. “Would you like some? It’s matcha.”

The blonde stops, staring at the steaming teacup before her, before nodding slowly.

“Sure,” she says, hesitantly, and takes the proffered cup.

Lena nods and takes a sip of her own tea. It’s still a little too hot, from the way it burns her tongue the teensiest bit. She blows on it a little before taking a sip, anyway. If she’s being honest, she kind of just needs something to do as she waits for Kara to gain her confidence again to say whatever she came to say. And if she’s being even more honest, she’s not entirely sure if she wants to, for whatever reason. It’s just a feeling, but she thinks that whatever is about to come out of Kara’s mouth will absolutely wreck her. Or put her back together again.

She sits down on a stool at the kitchen island, then gestures for Kara to do the same. She complies.

“Um…”

Kara fiddles with her cup for a bit, before setting it down on the granite countertop. 

The small clink is audible in the absolute quiet of the room, save for a rustling of clothes from nervous fidgeting. Lena isn’t sure whose.

“I’m not really sure why I asked to come talk, to be honest,” she chuckles weakly. “Well. I do feel like I should apologize for my outburst yesterday.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know… I just… dumped a crapload of misery onto you by keeping my identity a secret from you for so long—which you’re still coming to terms with, I can tell—and now I’m dumping all of these feelings onto you. I don’t want to make you feel pressured to forgive me, just like that. I want you to do it on your own terms.”

And for the first time in a long while, Lena finally feels… completely at ease in Kara’s presence. At her finally seeming to understand, when she seemed to brush everything off and pretended all was fine and forgiven, at the beginning. Until Lena finally blew up at her in the Fortress of Solitude, letting loose months of pent up anger and frustration and hurt.

“Keeping this secret from you for so long, telling you I believed in you while cutting you down with my next breath was horrible, but even more so… just.

“I- It was so manipulative and- and selfish of me to continue to keep up relations with you as two separate people, while knowing that had you known I was Supergirl, you would not have chosen to confide in me as Kara Danvers. I took away your ability to make a choice. I- I didn’t fully understand that at the time, but I do now, and it was horrible of me, Lena. God, I’m so, so sorry.” Kara’s eyes are shining with tears, now. And honestly, Lena’s might be, too. 

“I want you to know, I will wait for as long as you need. To talk, to forgive, to do whatever. You could never forgive me. And…” Kara gulps. “Truthfully, I would hate that and it would probably hurt forever, but I would respect your decision.”

Neither of them say anything, for an extended beat. Until-

“Well,” Lena speaks, finally, voice thick. “If we’re both being honest… It would hurt a lot to cut you out of my life forever.”

They both start crying, after that.

“I do want to mend things, Kara. But it’s going to take a while.”

“A long while,” she agrees, tearfully.

They’re silent for a moment.

Lena stands up suddenly, sniffling, wiping her tears away with her hands, before she makes her way over to the kettle, still dormant on the unlit stove.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m making another pot of tea. We have lots to talk about.”

“Would you- are you okay with that?”

“Yes. I think I’m ready to talk about it.”

Kara picks up her cup of tea, cool now, and takes a sip.

“Okay.”

She gives Lena a small, tentative smile over the rim of the cup.

“Let’s talk.”

--

After that night, it’s like the strange shit that would happen to Lena on an almost-daily basis pretty much completely stops. Lena definitely has a sneaking suspicion-slash-basically-confirmation of what Mxyzptlk was helping with, “in his own way”, but it’s a nice reprieve from constant torment.

There’s still a small prank here and there, but it’s not much more than an inconvenience. (She’s just glad the ostrich hasn’t made a reappearance.)

And… things aren’t back to what they were before—they’re still a long way from it—but it’s definitely getting better. They text a little more often now, sometimes with awkward how-was-your-day-good, thanks-how-about-you’s, but it feels better than complete radio silence.

All isn’t forgiven yet, either. Lena still feels the whips of anger and hurt more often than not, and she still snaps at Kara every now and then, but again-

Things feel… better. Lighter, almost. If a bit stilted, still.

Like they’re trying to find their way back to each other, somehow, but don’t quite know how to go about doing so.

Like now.

Lena looks up from her papers at a knock on her office door.

“Come in.”

To see Kara’s small smile as the door opens up a crack, then wider. She’s brought Big Belly Burger with her, Lena notices, as Kara holds up the bag with a small, shy duck of her head.

Lena puts her work aside to stand up and greet Kara.

“Kara. What a nice surprise,” she says, truthfully.

The two of them stand in front of one another, both unsure if they should initiate a hug like they always used to.

They both opt not to, at the same time.

But they do make polite conversation as they eat lunch, and sometimes, it almost feels like old times again.

Almost.

It still feels like they’re tip-toeing around each other a lot of the time.

(Lena isn’t sure how to feel about that.)

--

It's evening.

And she’s doing some paperwork and checking over a progress report on her computer at her kitchen counter when Lena hears the soft thud of boots outside on her balcony.

She looks up just as she hears a light tap on the glass door.

Kara enters at her gesture to come in.

Her apartment is still fairly lit by the fading sunlight, and Kara seems to bring some of it in with her as she steps inside. There’s a faint glow about her as her body is outlined in orange.

It takes Lena’s breath away.

But she remembers herself and stands up to greet her, moving swiftly to meet her near the middle of the room.

“Is there something you needed, Kara?,” Lena smiles. “Or is this a friendly visit?” 

She smiles back at her, then grimaces a little.

“Maybe a bit of both. I just came to let you know that Mxyptlk,” Kara says with a little annoyance in her voice, “won’t keep bothering you anymore. I’ve only just found out the extent of his ‘help’. Sorry about that, I tried to get him to stop, but he didn’t, apparently. He seems to find messing with people amusing and he pulled waaay more ‘pranks’ on you than I realized.”

Ah.

Lena had been wondering about that.

“It’s all right. Thanks for coming all this way to tell me,” Lena chuckles.

They’re quiet for a moment, just smiling at each other, when Kara clears her throat.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it. Don’t want to keep distracting you from your work,” Kara laughs nervously as she gestures at the stuff on Lena’s countertop, one hand on her hip.

“Oh no, you’re a welcome distraction, really.”

A beat.

“I’ll um. Get going now…” Kara turns to leave slowly, as if she wants to soak in as much of Lena’s presence as she can before she does.

“Wait,” Lena says, startling both of them.

“Yes?” the blonde turns around to look at her, almost hopefully.

“Why don’t you stay for a little longer? I was just about to make dinner.”

Kara’s smile grows at that.

“Alright.”

--

And then disaster strikes during her next press conference. Really, she should have known there was going to be an attempt on her life, based on all of her other ones. It wouldn’t be an L-Corp press conference without an assassination attempt on her, would it? Honestly, it’s tradition, at this point.

She’s standing at the podium, delivering a very strong beginning to her speech, thank you very much, when there’s a loud explosion behind her, the force of which rocks the stage and pushes her completely off balance. Followed by a blinding pain on the side of her arm as she goes down.

There’s a ringing in her ears, and shouting, frightened voices all around her as people attempt to flee the scene. And suddenly, Kara touches down and kneels right next to her, looking completely panicked.

“Are you okay, Lena? Are you hurt? Oh god, you’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine-”

Her cape whips around them, and Lena hears the thud of a bullet hitting the wooden floor.

Kara’s eyes stare at it then look at Lena, wide-eyed, and definitely panicked.

“We need to get you out of here right n-”

A loud whooping of voices suddenly enters the vicinity. Voices belonging to a big group of people holding what appear to be alien weapons.

Kara curses under her breath.

“Mxyzptlk!”

A man suddenly appears right next to them.

“Yees…?” he drawls out. Then takes a look at the scene around them. “Hot beefcakes! What’s going on here?”

“Mxy, can you- can you listen to me for once and get Lena out of here? Please? And maybe try to get these other people to safety too while I go deal with this?” She points to the approaching crowd.

“Alright, alright. Done!” he snaps his fingers.

There’s a squawk behind them.

Oh.

Oh no.

“Are you crazy? I am not getting on that thing! What’s your deal with ostriches, anyw- ahhh!”

She suddenly finds herself on the ostrich, which swiftly takes to the sky, soaring higher and higher until the scene is far below them.

“How the fuck are you flying right now?” she screams. “Ostriches can’t even fly- oh of course. I’m talking to a fifth-dimensional magic bird here.”

It huffs at her.

“I still don’t like you, you know. Even if you’re technically saving my life here.”

She sighs.

“I hope Kara’s doing okay. She probably is, right? She’s Supergirl. She can handle it.”

The explosion probably rattled her more than she thought, she realizes, because she’s still talking to the fucking bird. Truly amazing.

The ostrich grumbles as they touch down on her L-Corp office balcony. Lena slides off of it, shakily. She just almost got murdered, after all.

It makes its way inside, immediately finding its way to her drawer and headbutting it.

“Polite, aren’t we.”

It headbutts the drawer some more, flapping its wings. It looks at her expectantly.

“Oh for fuck’s sake. Alright, alright.”

Lena knows exactly what it wants. She sighs and opens the drawer, pulling out a granola bar. The bastard huffs impatiently as she opens it with a faint crinkle of the wrapper.

“The usual?” she drawls as she glances at the ostrich from the corner of her eye. She breaks it into pieces, which she scatters onto her floor.

She leaves it be as she leaves to go to her bathroom at the other end of the hall, ignoring the thudding of whatever objects the ostrich is tipping over again out of pure spite, probably.

.
.
.

Staring at her reflection in the mirror, she’s only a little surprised to see how pale she looks. It’s only then does she notice that the area on her arm that’s still a little numb with pain is covered in red, her pale, bloodied skin exposed to the open air from the way her suit jacket sleeve is ripped open.

Grazed by a bullet.

She pulls off her jacket to inspect the area, prodding at it a little. It stings.

“Ah, fuck.” Lena hisses quietly. She fetches a first aid kit from the cabinet to tend to the wound.

She’s just finished bandaging it up when she hears a single heavy thud of boots landing, followed by the pacing of lighter, more rapid steps.

“Lena?” she hears the worried voice of Kara call out.

“Over here.”

She throws away all the stuff she had finished using and exits the bathroom, making her way into her office. It seems like the ostrich has left, she notes.

The blonde looks fine, if a little tired. But fine. Lena relaxes.

Kara, on the other hand, does not.

In fact, she blows up at her.

“Lena, how could you hold another press conference?? While I had to be called away on the other side of the city, fighting that giant slug? You know what happens during all of your press conferences. You couldn’t postpone it??”

Lena shrugs. “I can’t live my life in fear. There’s things to be done. And one of them happens to be this press conference. I need to inform people of-”

“To hell with that, Lena! I don’t care what the people need to know when your life is at stake!”

“My life doesn’t matter that much, not in the grand scheme of things,” Lena snorts. “I need to turn this company away from my brother’s maniacal visions and ensure that this company stays on its path to be a force for good. And this press conference is a stepping stone for that.”

Kara goes absolutely red with anger, at that.

“You- I-”

She takes a deep, long breath.

“You need to be alive to do that, Lena! For fuck’s sake!”

Oh god. Lena doesn’t think she’s ever heard Kara swear. She’s in for it now.

“For fuck’s sake, Lena,” Kara says, voice wavering. “Please care about your own life more! Can’t you see how- how…how much you mean to me?” Kara takes a step forward, towards Lena. “How much it would kill me to see you gone?” Another step, and another. Each one punctuating each phrase.

“I’m the one who would’ve had to listen to your heart stop, to the deafening quiet of it, I’m the one who would’ve had to hold your lifeless body, begging you to come back to me, I’m the one who would’ve had to make funeral preparations, I’m the one who would have had to mourn you every day for the rest of my life!”

She stops just short of her.

“I almost didn’t make it to you in time, Lena.” She whispers, eyes welling up, voice thick with tears. “I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t.”

Oh, Lena thinks, the gravity of the situation finally sinking in.

“I-I’m fine, Kara. Honest,” Lena says weakly, holding up her arm to her line of vision. “See? It’s just a small scratch.”

Kara breathes in deeply through her nose.

“That’s not the point, Lena,” she says lowly, almost painfully.

“It just felt like things were getting better, for real this time and you- you almost died, Lena. You almost died.” Kara chokes back a sob. “Before we even got the chance to make things right again. I can’t- I can’t lose you, Lena. I can’t. Not again. Not when we were on our way back to each other. Not when… Not when...” She wipes at her nose, sniffing as she looks at the ground.

She suddenly moves to the far side of Lena’s office to right a bookshelf that had been tipped over. A couple of books fall out to join the already-present pile of books beside the piece of furniture.

“Sorry,” she mumbles hoarsely, kneeling down quickly to pick them up and hurriedly try to shove them back onto the shelves.

Lena walks over, kneeling down beside her. Kara’s hands are shaking.

She places her own hands over them, stilling their movement.

“It’s alright,” she whispers, gently. Her voice is thick with tears. “And I- I’m sorry, Kara. I’ll be more careful from now on.”

Kara looks up at her, meeting her gaze.

“Thank you,” she says, quietly.

Lena gives her a small, reassuring smile.

Kara gives one back.

And they start to stack the books back, one by one, onto the sturdy shelves. Together.

--

It’s the first time she’s been at game night for a long, long while, it feels like. Though Kara’s apartment hasn’t changed one bit, save for one or two new items.

The moment she walks in, everyone turns from their positions to greet her.

Kelly smiles politely, J’onn gives her a curt nod, and Nia lets out a loud, excited whoop.

“Yeah! Scientist back in the house, baby!”

“Nice to see you too, Nia,” Lena says with a smile. “All of you.”

She looks over to her to see Kara patting the space in the couch beside her. It’s in between Kara and Brainy, who gives her a nod, followed by a small smile when she sits down.

After that day, it’s like something gave way and she and Kara have finally stopped tip-toeing around each other. It’s like things are finally just-almost back to normal, and they can breathe easily again. 

She finds that she’s glad, when Kara slings an arm over her with a wide smile.

“Glad you made it!” she says, breathlessly.

“Me too,” Lena replies, meaning it this time.

“Alright!” Alex claps her hands together and looks at Lena approvingly. “Now that everyone’s here, we can start! Who wants to go first?”

--

Kara in her borrowed pajamas is a sight she never thought she’d see again. And a welcome one. (It’s rather hilarious to see the way the sweatpants expose her ankles, given that she’s taller than Lena, after all.)

And much stronger, she notes, as she studies the way Kara’s muscles fill into her shirt.

“What is it? Do I have something on my face?” Kara asks. “Oh god, did I spill something on your-”

Lena clears her throat, slightly embarrassed at having been caught staring. Just slightly. 

“My clothes. They don’t really fit, do they?” she chuckles. 

Kara looks up from her frantic studying of the shirt she’s wearing. 

She grins. “I think they fit just nicely.”

“Mhmm.”

“They do! Besides, it’s in season to expose your ankles! I’m not some society-conforming Victorian dame, Lena.”

Lena laughs at that. “Yes, but people expose their ankles from cuffing their pants, darling. Not from wearing them a size too small.”

“Well I think it’s a Look™. And a great one at that.”

She snorts. “Did you just say ‘™’ out loud?”

“Yep!”

“Ugh,” Lena rolls her eyes good-naturedly. “Come on, let’s just get the movie started already.”

She grabs Kara’s arm to lead her to the couch, but then-

“Wait! The popcorn!”

Kara makes a mad dash to grab the bowl sitting on the kitchen counter, before plopping down on the couch and draping the blanket over her lap. All of the popcorn somehow remains in the bowl throughout this process. 

She lifts a portion of the blanket up, looking at Lena expectantly. 

“Well?”

Lena shakes her head at her antics, chuckling softly, before going to join her. 

.
.
.

The room is silent, save for the sounds of the movie and the chewing of popcorn.

They’re snuggled up under the blanket, right next to each other by now, Lena’s face in the crook of Kara’s neck. 

“I’m in love with you, you know,” Lena breathes against Kara’s collarbone. Soft enough that anyone else wouldn’t have been able to pick it up. “‘ave been for a long time, now.”

Kara isn’t just anyone, though. Lena knows she heard.

Her head moves an inch off of Lena’s to look at her.

“Yeah?” she whispers, softly into the quiet.

Lena gazes up at her from her shoulder.

“Yeah,” she whispers back, just as softly, just as quietly.

“Okay,” Kara replies, smiling gently.

She kisses the top of Lena’s head, before pulling Lena in closer to her chest.

“I love you too.”

They go back to watching the movie after that, breathing in the comforting presence of the other. It’s a really good one.

.
.
.