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The jury summons arrives on a Friday.
“You have to get yourself disqualified,” Alex says.
Kara frowns. “What about my civic duty?”
Her sister ignores her. She’s on her phone, already finding her an out. “Your occupation should qualify you for an exemption,” she discovers. “It says here, if you’re full-time military, or a firefighter, or a cop—”
Kara holds the letter up for Alex to read. “They didn’t summon Supergirl,” she says. “They summoned Kara Danvers, freelance food critic and full-time reporter.”
-
Kara gets there early. She chats with the security guard, empties first her pockets and then half the vending machine, and spends the remaining forty-five minutes people-watching while the other prospective jurors trickle into the waiting room.
And then, at 8.15 on the dot, in walks Lena Luthor.
Kara barely gives her a second glance, at first. Because it’s just this thing that's been happening, right, this slightly inconvenient issue Kara’s been having, where she sees Lena Luthor everywhere; a similarly sleek and inky curtain of hair here, a comparably sardonic smile there. Lena Luthor has haunted her since Clark’s L-Corp interview, seven weeks and four days ago. This is just another mirage.
But then the woman stops just a mere two feet away and says, in that deep, wry voice Lena Luthor has, “Kara Danvers, of CatCo.” And Kara nearly swallows her own tongue when she realizes it’s actually her, this time.
“Lena.” Kara freezes. “I mean, Ms Luthor.”
“Lena is fine.” She shrugs out of her coat and arches one imperious eyebrow at the seat next to Kara, and Kara spills the entire contents of her messenger bag in her haste to accommodate her.
When she resurfaces, Lena is sitting beside her, so close Kara can smell her expensive perfume. Her thigh brushes Lena’s briefly before she moves it away, her chino pants rubbing up against the delicate knit of Lena’s dress, and that faint touch—combined with the sight of Lena Luthor looking at her with a bright spark of genuine amusement—is enough to make Kara’s faculties flicker out until all she’s left with is the slow, heavy throbbing between her thighs.
So that's the, uh, other part of Kara's problem.
-
Alex promised her that jury duty would be boring. Her sister isn’t usually wrong, but Kara is glad to learn there’s a first time for everything.
So she does what every little sister would, and positively relishes it.
guess who’s here, she texts her sister, gloating, tilting her screen so Lena won’t see.
if it’s james marsden, RUN, Alex replies.
Kara bites her lip, tempted to snap her a picture. But that would be creepy, so she opts for simply telling her instead.
Alex takes so long to reply that Kara has half-forgotten about texting her by the time she finally gets a response. be careful, her message reads. according to the court records it’s legit, but a Luthor and a Super serving jury duty together? that seems like an awfully big coincidence to me.
you’re being paranoid, Kara writes.
that so-called paranoia has saved your life seventeen times now, Alex types back. you could be a little more grateful.
ok, Kara decides: if Lena Luthor ends up murdering me in front of national city’s district court, i'll buy you a bar of that weird orange chocolate you like so much.
-
Lena Luthor isn’t a big fan of small talk, Kara discovers.
She spends the first three hours of her morning trying desperately to act like a normal human person while Lena sits next to her, working, answering Kara’s fitful attempts at conversation with kind but brief replies.
“So jury, um, duty,” is Kara’s first imaginative bid. “What a pain, right?”
Lena’s eyebrow twitches, but she doesn’t look up from the tablet in her lap. “It doesn’t hurt to take a break from work,” she hums, her Irish accent—faint, but still unmistakably there—curling the corners of her mouth. “I’m sure we can all use a day off.”
“It doesn’t look like you’re taking much of a break,” Kara forges on, indicating Lena’s tablet. It seems to have some sort of screen protection in place that makes it visible only from one very particular angle. “What are you working on?”
Lena’s eyes flash up at her this time. Kara tries not to squirm under her speculative gaze.
“On the record, Ms Danvers?” Lena asks.
“Oh! No, I—” Kara stammers, startled, unsure if Lena is joking or much more familiar with Kara’s professional advancement than she has reason to be. “It’s just Kara,” she says, and then, hesitantly, “you know, I did end up becoming a reporter.”
“I’m aware,” Lena says, to Kara’s shock. She tilts her tablet so Kara can see the screen, and preposterously, it shows Lena has been reading one of Kara’s most recent articles. “I think I owe Cat Grant an apology,” Lena muses. “I had CatCo magazine pegged as a slightly glossier gossip rag, but it’s seen a decisive uptick in substance, of late.”
And Kara stares at her, slack-jawed, as Lena Luthor throws her a wink with that last remark.
-
By the time noon rolls around, Kara is in love.
Lena Luthor is breathtakingly bright. Talking to her, even in these short, sporadic bursts, makes Kara feel like a child just beginning to learn how to read. She remembers the thrill of it, the hunger thrumming beneath the effort to catch up. Being let in on such an incredible secret, one sight word at a time, had felt like arriving famished at a feast only to be allowed no more than the occasional morsel.
She’s also even more beautiful up close. Lena’s features are a striking collection of contrasts; her dark lashes fall against paper-white cheeks, her severe brows frame a pair of startlingly inquisitive eyes, and the sharp jut of her collarbones offsets the soft curve of her cleavage beneath.
And oh, shoot—did she just catch Kara staring again?
-
When they’re released for lunch, Lena decides to join Kara on her mission to locate a decent place to eat. By the time they’re debating what to order from the Mexican food truck they find, Kara is almost drunk with devotion. She no longer cares about her civic duty, or her sister’s suspicions, or even the food she’s about to eat.
Her one and only purpose now is to make Lena Luthor laugh.
“Hey Lena,” Kara says, calculating there’s about a fifty-fifty chance she’s going to regret what she’s about to do. “Quick, what do you get when you combine tantalum, cobalt and sulfur?”
Lena blinks at her. “Well,” she mutters, frowning to herself, “taking into account, of course, the eutectic reaction—”
“TaCoS,” Kara tells the window attendant brightly, her smile unwavering as she waits patiently for her punchline to land.
Lena’s surprised snort is graceless and off-guard, and immediately addictive.
Kara spends her lunch hour watching her, as Lena unsuccessfully attempts to brush the fresh cilantro from what she announces are her very first food truck fajitas, and knows she’s completely and utterly hooked.
-
The day turns out to be full of such surprises.
Lena is so sure she’ll be excused that she gives Kara a small wave goodbye when she’s called into voir dire. Kara mourns her loss, as well as her own lack of courage to ask her for her number.
She doesn’t have to mourn for long, because Kara is called in right after her. And then they get assigned to the same, high-profile trial.
Which means, of course, that they’ll need to be sequestered.
-
Alex isn’t happy when Kara calls. Under a bailiff’s stern and watchful supervision, Kara grapples for terms that will reassure her sister without giving too much away.
“I don’t like this, Kara,” Alex says. “What if it’s all part of the latest Luthor plot?”
“Everyone is really nice, actually,” Kara promises her, trying not to cower beneath the bailiff’s steely gaze. “We’re going to be great friends.”
Alex barely listens, buried as she is in her own misgivings. “Holding Supergirl hostage by tying her up in court,” Kara hears her mutter. “It’s inventive, I’ll give her that.”
-
Lena is juror number five; Kara is juror number seven. Their hotel rooms are 720 and 721.
“Now, these are adjoining rooms,” the bailiff informs them after she’s given them their keys. “You’ll be wanting to keep these two doors locked.”
Kara knocks the moment they’re alone. Lena’s smile is so broad it dimples her cheeks when both sides of the double door swing open.
“It’s like summer camp,” Kara grins.
“Or a sleepover,” Lena says.
-
They begin breaking the rules like that: naively, without intention.
Kara goes to sleep in room 721, that first night and the thirteen that follow after.
But both doors remain unlocked.
-
The trial itself is rough. On a surface level, it’s nothing new—Kara deals with crime and punishment every day as Supergirl. But she’s never had to sit in a room for seven hours listening to the dreadful details of it all.
It makes her kind of glad that they’ve been instructed not to discuss the case.
“So what are we allowed to talk about?” Juror number eight erupts the second afternoon, throwing down his fork the third time someone reminds him of this fact. “We’re all perfect strangers.”
Perfect, Kara thinks, glancing at Lena. That sounds about right.
“So, stranger,” she says, nudging Lena’s shoulder as she picks over their catered salad bar. “Tell me something about yourself.”
Lena gives her an indulgent smirk. “Don’t tell me Kara Danvers, ace reporter, hasn’t done her homework.”
Kara did. She always does. It’s actually been painful, not having her phone at her disposal at all times, unable to look up things like ‘is it illegal to fall in love with a fellow juror’ or ‘does wearing triangle earrings mean a woman is gay’.
Thank goodness she gets to slip out of her balcony door each night after Lena has gone to sleep, taking off into the night to google every single one of these questions on her sister’s phone.
And, right, also: to serve justice in a way she’s a little more familiar with.
-
A week is a very, very long time in complete isolation.
They play board games. Table tennis. Chess. They read bad books and bestsellers and back issues of magazines.
“You’ve never seen The Little Mermaid?” Kara howls one evening after a particularly harrowing day.
Lena furrows her brow, bewildered. “The fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen?” she says.
Kara chats up the bailiff in order to rectify the situation immediately.
That’s the night Kara begins to grasp the sensuality of Lena’s joy. The sound and the sight of her laughter are thrilling, especially when Kara is the cause. But that evening, with Lena comfortably reclined against her on the couch in the common room, Kara learns about the feeling of it—of Lena’s soft bemused exhales brushing against the collar of Kara’s shirt; of her low, vibrating hums that resonate pleasantly inside Kara’s chest; of her shoulders shaking, jostling Kara’s own, during a rare and deeply rewarding giggle.
Kara wonders naively if Lena’s delight might be this pleasing to all five of her heightened senses. She isn’t ready for the places her mind takes her when it helpfully lists, to see. to hear. to touch.
to smell.
Kara swallows.
to taste.
-
“Hey Lena,” Kara says, around a mouthful of rice this time. “Why did the plaintiff drive home in his skivvies?”
Lena is distracted, requiring near-surgical focus and precision to remove every single sliver of ginger from her poke bowl. “I don’t know,” she says absently. “Why?”
Kara grins. “Because his lawyers advised him to drop his suit.”
Lena’s dark answering glare has Kara’s heart doing backflips in her chest.
-
On day eleven, 12.10pm, juror number eight attempts to kick up a rebellion in the jury assembly room.
“I don’t believe for a single second that our government has the power to keep its citizens away from their own families,” he snarls.
“That man has another thing coming,” Lena mutters, carefully rebuilding her burger now that she's removed the bacon bits.
“He’s just angry because he can’t send private messages to his girlfriend,” Kara whispers back, leaning close to make sure Lena can hear her. “Yvette—the bailiff—tells me that they can get pretty steamy.”
Lena makes a face. “Thank you so much for sharing that.”
“I think it’s sort of sweet,” Kara says, admiring the play of muscles in Lena’s jaw when she bites down on her burger. “They’re just trying to connect, in any way they can.”
Lena looks skeptical. “Sexting is hardly a connection,” she says after she swallows. “There’s no substance, no real feeling.”
Kara takes another risk, feeling safe with Lena so off-guard, pressed so close against her shoulder. “Don't knock it till you try it,” she gambles. It’s a step further than she’s allowed herself to go, a firm shift into a different gear, but Lena doesn’t even stop chewing. She just shrugs and says, "I have. I found it boring."
Kara is glad she can blame her blush on righteous indignation. "Boring?" she yelps. She can think of an easy one hundred very different adjectives she'd use to describe the idea of sexting Lena Luthor.
Lena licks out at a bit of mustard at the corner of her mouth, the brief flash of her tongue making Kara break into a sweat. “I need to hear my partner’s voice, at the very least,” Lena says. And she holds Kara’s gaze as she adds, her voice lower than before, “I like to listen to the way my words affect her.”
And like.
There have been times—there have been many, many times—where Kara wanted nothing more than to have Lena’s eyes on her. But right now, with Kara’s heart pounding with such panicked force it almost bobs her out of her chair, she’s immensely grateful when Lena returns her attention to her lunch.
-
(It’s a day that’s full of revelations.
But Kara’s not allowed to talk about the case.)
-
Day 14 is juror number eight’s birthday. No one really cares, but then Yvette—Kara’s favorite bailiff and new best friend—lets slip that they’re allowed to request an opportunity to celebrate, and everyone is so desperate for a distraction that it turns into a huge deal.
It’s actually just dinner and drinks at The Cheesecake Factory, but they’ve all been cooped up inside their hotel for so long that it rivals a trip to Disneyland.
The food is very good. The music is really loud. And, as Kara discovers when their waiter winks his extra set of eyelids, the bar is staffed mostly by aliens. The bartender takes one look at them—first at Lena, and then at Kara—and promptly declares himself the patron saint of no-charge bottomless cocktails.
It’s the first time she’s ever seen Lena at a loss for words. And Kara has to admit she’s a little bit surprised herself. Aliens love Kara Danvers; she’s been getting their fan mail ever since Snapper began giving her a little more leeway regarding both the topic and the tone of her printed pieces. But Lena Luthor? That is a different story entirely.
“I don’t understand,” Lena says, her eyes glittering perilously when the waiter tucks another fresh Whiskey Smash into her hand. “Shouldn’t you hate me, if you know my name?”
The bartender leans in close between them, his gills quivering with emotion. “We know,” he says enigmatically. “Even though these things rarely make the news. Your name doesn’t matter, it’s your actions that count. And we know exactly how much you’ve done for us. ”
“Wow,” Kara chuckles when he’s gone, feeling oddly inadequate, clearly out of the loop both as a reporter and as a member of National City’s alien community. “What was that about?”
Lena stares after him for a moment longer, and then abruptly raises her glass. "Come on," she says, motioning for Kara to clink it with hers. “We’re celebrating.”
-
Another perk of alien bartenders: they know how to make you feel it.
The cocktails are delicious. There’s also a really pretty dessert, with sparklers and at least four different kinds of chocolate mousse. And then there’s dancing; the uninhibited kind, the kind Alex likes to refer to as Kara’s avian mating ritual.
“Hey Lena,” Kara says after that’s been going on a while, "why did the, um, the guy—why did he jump off a bridge when his jury summons came in the mail?”
Lena is swaying really, like, really close to her. Her arms are slung around Kara’s shoulders and her pupils are like pools of ink. She looks like maybe she’s still a little hungry, which makes sense, because Kara has discovered that Lena Luthor is an insanely picky eater.
Lena says nothing, just sort of stares at Kara’s mouth, so Kara grins and tells her, “‘He thought he'd heard hell hath no jury.”
The rest of dinner is mostly a blur.
-
Lena trips into the elevator after her and straight back into her arms. And then she stays there, her hands gripping Kara’s shoulders as if they’re still dancing, for the entire ride up to their floor.
So it’s probably fair to say they’ve both had a little too much to drink.
Lena can't find her keycard, so Kara lets her in through their shared door. Lena is still stubbornly rooting through her purse as she walks into Kara's room, her brow furrowed and her cheeks a really pretty pink. “Thanks,” she says distractedly.
And then she blinks back up at her, and Kara realizes she probably should have waited for Lena to go into her own room before she removed her pants.
“Oh,” Lena says.
Kara suddenly has no idea what she normally does with her hands. She flounders, fiddling with her glasses for a minute, before finally deciding to plant them on her hips.
“We should, um,” Lena tells Kara’s thighs. She licks her lips. “We should—” She points in the general direction of her room without breaking her gaze. “Rehydrate.”
Kara follows Lena as she goes to fetch them both some water. Her room smells like her, Kara thinks. Her expensive perfume lingers in the air, present but not overbearing, and her pillowcases carry the scent of her shampoo.
“Kara,” Lena says. “Are you in my bed?”
“Maybe?” Kara answers, voice muffled by the pillow pressed against her mouth.
Lena climbs in next to her, tucking a water bottle under Kara’s shoulder before flopping down onto her back. Kara admires her profile with the eye that isn’t squished shut. Lena has traded her dress for her silk robe, but her hair is still up in that tight French twist, her lipstick severe as ever.
Kara wants very badly to rub it off her lips.
With her own lips, if at all feasible.
She’s pretty sure she just said that last part out loud.
Lena turns her head to face her, letting out a trembling breath. The sound of it is intoxicating. I like to listen to the way my words affect her, Kara remembers Lena saying. As she feels a liquid heat begin to pool in the space between her hips, Kara believes she gets it, now.
“I think we’re both too drunk to be having this conversation,” Lena says.
Kara lifts herself onto her forearms until she’s hovering above her, a little unsteadily. “It doesn’t have to be a conversation,” she says, staring hard at Lena’s mouth. “I’ve always been much better at doing.”
Lena’s eyelids swoop down low until they’re hiding half her eyes. Her lips part. It feels like an invitation, but Kara needs to know for sure.
“Lena.” Kara whispers it almost directly against her lips, reverent, shivering when she hears the catch in Lena’s breath.
One of Lena's hands comes up to cradle Kara's face, the pad of her thumb stroking softly across her cheek. It makes Kara’s skin feel tingly, a zip of electric energy racing from Lena’s touch right down to where it curls her toes. She wonders if this is what vertigo feels like, holding herself up the way she is, still wobbly, with Lena’s face—her lips, her tongue—so close beneath her own.
“If I kissed you,” Kara whispers, “would you kiss me back?”
Lena furrows her brow, her lashes fluttering shut. “Yes,” she rasps. But when Kara tries to bring their lips together, Lena’s hand holds them firmly apart. “Which means you really shouldn’t,” she rectifies.
When Kara leans back to look at her, she’s struck by Lena’s beauty all over again. The blush on her cheeks has spread to cover the tops of her breasts, all the way to the edge of Lena’s robe, and Kara is gripped by an overwhelming urge to investigate exactly how far down it goes.
"What if—" Kara thinks hard, sitting up to glance down at Lena's body, her hips, her calves, searching for a solution for their problem; a way to find out what Lena tastes like without crossing the boundary she’s set. Fortunately Kara has spent the past two weeks exposed to a very competent defense attorney, so she’s picked up a few tricks. She asks, in a stroke of brilliance, "What if I didn’t kiss you on the mouth?"
Lena looks confused, but her chest is rising and falling in an alarmingly non-stop motion. It’s kind of hypnotic. Kara startles out of her haze when she asks, “What?”
It’s not a no, so Kara rallies. “What if I kissed you somewhere else?”
Lena looks almost as inspired as Kara feels. "Fuck," she says, and like, yes, if that's an option.
"Please," Kara says.
Lena holds Kara’s gaze for a long beat, biting her lip while she makes up her mind. Her eyes are almost completely black in the dimness of the room. “One kiss," she decides, holding up a finger when Kara grins. "That’s all you get. And then we're going to drink this entire bottle of water and go right to sleep."
"Yes ma'am," Kara salutes, smirking when Lena’s eyes flash up sharply at the word.
She tenses again when Kara reaches for the sash of her robe, putting a hand on Kara's wrist as she begins to tug it loose. "Kara, what are you—"
"Shhh," Kara says, smiling, waiting for Lena to take her hand away. "I'm deliberating."
Lena swallows thickly when Kara parts her robe around her chest, revealing a simple black bra and a dazzling expanse of flushed, freckled skin. "You look like strawberry ice cream," Kara marvels, "with tiny chocolate sprinkles." And then she leans down and licks a wet stripe up the trail of birthmarks that starts between Lena’s breasts and ends just below the hinge of her jaw.
Lena doesn’t taste like ice cream, Kara discovers. She tastes like salt, and heat, and the slight chemical tang of her perfume.
“Jesus fuck,” Lena wheezes.
“That wasn’t a kiss,” Kara points out quickly.
“Okay, yeah, alright,” Lena rushes out in response, her toes flexing into the sheets when Kara drags her fingers down over the tempting round of her belly. The movement exposes more of Lena’s body as her robe falls away. Lena shivers, her abdomen twitching. “Maybe give me a bit of warning, next time.”
Kara’s next inquiry is obvious, but Kara wants to show Lena that she takes her instructions seriously. “Permission to approach the bra, your Honor?” she quips.
Lena throws an arm over her face and groans. Kara expected she would. But she also huffs, “Permission granted,” so Kara considers it a win.
Lena’s breasts are exactly as soft as Kara thought they would be, and so responsive to Kara’s thorough exploration that she almost forgets Lena’s first rule. It doesn’t help that Lena has thrown her head back into her pillow so she can thrust her chest into Kara’s hands, leaving the stark muscles of her neck vulnerably exposed.
It makes Kara want to pinch a little harder, eager to find out what else she can make Lena do.
Her impulse is rewarded with the sight of Lena’s back arching entirely off of the bed and the sound of her releasing a long, blasphemous moan. And when Kara’s mouth follows the cruel twist of her fingers—first with the soothing touch of her tongue, and then with a wicked nip of her teeth—Lena actually sobs.
“Is that too much?” Kara checks in, her thumb rubbing wet circles around one stiff peak as Lena thrashes and sighs.
Lena shakes her head, panting. “No,” she gasps. “I feel like—oh, God.” She loses her breath when Kara takes her into her mouth again, combining the firm pressure of her lips with the languid glide of her tongue. Kara hums, pleased, proud, when Lena starts to tremble beneath her mouth. Her hips are undulating now, rolling beneath her in a steady, fluid motion. “You feel amazing,” Lena husks, “But I think—I think we better stop this before we do something we’re both going to regret.”
Kara releases her from her mouth as soon as she hears the word ‘stop’, but Lena’s body keeps moving even when Kara stops touching her. She’s squeezing her thighs together, her calves rubbing restlessly against the bed. And she’s still gripping the bed sheets, as if she’s holding back just as much as Kara is.
Kara tucks her lips between her teeth, looking down at the hidden junction of Lena’s thighs. “Okay,” she says, breezily, sprawling out next to Lena on the bed. “But I think I have reached a decision.”
Lena actually looks a little disheartened. “What do you mean?”
“I know where I want to kiss you,” Kara says. “But not, obviously, if your previous statement’s been withdrawn.”
“God—you are such a dork,” Lena chokes out. But her legs fall open when she says it, her body picking up perfectly on what it is that Kara wants and seemingly willing to offer it to her, so Kara glows as if Lena has praised her.
They lie there for a moment, just breathing. And then Lena’s hand, the one that’s closest to Kara’s body, begins to map out a leisurely but purposeful path up the inside of her own thigh.
Kara follows its tantalizingly slow progression with keen interest. Lena is so close Kara can almost feel her, as if it’s Kara who Lena is teasing rather than herself. Kara has to bite back a whine at the thought. By the time Lena reaches the chalky skin at the top of her inner thigh they’re both breathing hard, their bodies drawing together as if pulled by their gravitational force.
Lena has never been sexier than when she says, the words husking against the shell of Kara’s ear, “Consider my objection overruled.”
Kara doesn’t know whether to laugh or kiss her, until she remembers the latter would mean the evening coming to an end. So she settles for giving Lena a lovestruck little smile before settling onto her back, unbuttoning her shirt and adjusting the pillow beneath her head to make herself more comfortable.
Lena’s gaze lingers on Kara’s newly exposed abdomen for a moment before flicking back up to her face. “Kara,” she says. “Did you hear what I just said?” She actually sounds a little miffed. Kara finds it unexpectedly arousing.
“Oh, I did.” She rolls her shoulders, giving Lena a pointed smirk, and says, “Please be seated.”
Lena looks like she can’t decide whether she wants to mount or murder her.
Kara’s very happy when she decides on the former.
-
There’s nothing at all, not on earth or on any of the planets beyond, past nor future, that Kara believes could compare to experiencing Lena Luthor’s rapture with every single one of her superpowered senses at once.
There’s the sight of her positioning herself above her, glistening and lush; the sound of her, breathless, helpless, as Kara opens up her mouth; the feeling of her soft thighs, trembling and twitching as she settles against her shoulders; the scent of her, heavy and so hot Kara finds herself grabbing Lena’s ass in a desperate bid for more; and—finally—there’s the taste of Lena on her tongue.
Kara is immediately obsessed. She feels ravenous, insatiable, seized by a vulgar instinct to devour. She already knows, with devastating certainty, that she’ll never be able to get enough.
Lena’s legs have locked tightly around Kara’s ears and she’s muttering under her breath, a constant, feverish litany of curses and praise, so it takes Kara a moment to realize that there was a request in there, somewhere.
Lena’s whole body seizes when Kara hooks her arms around her thighs and firmly spreads them apart. “Come with me,” Lena is telling her, “Touch yourself,” and the note of desperation in her voice is so stirring Kara almost comes right then, from sheer eagerness to please.
She lifts Lena up gently, just enough so she can speak. “You want me to?” she asks.
Lena nods furiously, half-wild.
“If it pleases the court,” Kara says with a wink.
To which Lena grinds herself down hard in an obvious effort to smother her. “Shut up,” she moans, “please, oh, God—”
Lena’s thighs are already quaking in Kara’s lopsided grip when Kara kicks off her boxer briefs and slips her hand between her legs, finding the slippery mess she’s made. But that’s okay—Kara isn’t going to last long herself.
Lena’s body ripples above her, her movements growing more and more erratic. “Kara,” she stammers, “I’m going to—mother of fuck—”
Kara sees her through it, keeping her mouth exactly where Lena needs it as she sobs out pleasure and praise. When she breaks, going rigid above her, Kara is right there with her, her fingers pressing bruises into the tender flesh of Lena’s thigh, her strained groan muffled by Lena’s body as they topple over into bliss.
-
They finish the bottle of water after, just as they agreed.
Kara spends the night sleeping in Lena’s room. In Lena Luthor’s bed.
-
The next morning is… painful. And not just because of Kara’s aching head.
Kara tries to be quiet about slipping out of bed and locating her glasses and her boxer briefs, but she soon discovers that’s a whole lot harder when she’s not allowed to fly around the room. When she somehow manages to sweep the entire contents of Lena’s nightstand onto the floor, Lena pops up from her pillow like a hungover jack-in-the-box.
“Kara,” she grunts blearily, thick tangles of hair sticking to her mouth. “What are you doing?”
Kara gives her a good-natured wave from where she’s clutching her crumpled shirt against her body. “Hey, Lena,” she says in a sing-song, soothing kind of tone. “Why did the juror have to go to court commando?”
“Oh no,” Lena says.
Kara grimaces. “She couldn’t find her briefs.”
Lena rolls over on the bed, fishing for the alarm clock that’s now somewhere over off Kara's side of the bed. “We’re going to have to talk about this, aren’t we?”
“It’s not illegal to fall in—” Kara blurts, stopping herself just in time. “Into bed with a fellow member of the jury,” she maneuvers brilliantly.
Kara is actually not one hundred percent sure that’s true. Her search results had been frustratingly inconclusive. But she’s at least half-convinced they’ll be okay, as long as the other jurors don’t file a noise complaint.
Lena pads over to her bathroom, completely unbothered by her own nudity, or the fact that Kara can’t bring herself to look away.
“You think two jurors forming an intimate connection doesn’t constitute misconduct?” she calls out while she pees. “Or that this won’t complicate matters when we begin deliberations?”
Lena’s second point is moot, Kara thinks. Last night didn’t change the feelings she already had for Lena. From the moment she walked into the waiting room, Lena Luthor could have asked Kara for anything, and Kara would have given it to her.
“I doubt that’s going to be a problem though,” Kara says. “We all know the defendant didn’t do it.”
Lena’s face is ashen when she emerges again. “Oh God,” she says. “You believe he’s innocent? Oh, god—is it because he's an alien?”
So that’s, you know, a tiny little bit of a thing.
-
Kara misses her sister.
She still gets to see her, most nights, before her unlawful patrols of the city, or after she saves the day. But there’s no midnight food runs, no movie nights, no farmer’s market Fridays. And Kara needs to talk to her, needs to tell her about Lena, and about everything else that’s been going on. But with things being the way they are, talking about Lena feels as forbidden as discussing the case.
She hardly knows how to break it to her, anyway. Lena Luthor. She can practically taste Alex’s disdain.
-
“So, fascinating factoid,” Kara announces to the jurors that have joined them in the common room for an ill-fated game of Pandemic. “Did you know that, if you have any reasonable doubt whatsoever, you have to vote not guilty?”
Yvette gives her a watchful glance.
“Just saying,” Kara shrugs, feeling Lena’s glare boring into the side of her head. “I thought it was interesting.”
-
It’s not going to happen again, Lena decrees.
Kara’s only possible option is to fall in line.
-
At the first blush of morning on day 19, Kara slinks back in through her balcony door, still licking frosting off her fingers, and finds Lena standing in the doorway to her room.
She’s backlit by the hazy light coming from her still steamed up shower. She’s dressed only in an oversized t-shirt, water droplets clinging to the ends of her hair.
And she won’t meet Kara’s eyes.
“I guess I can stop wondering how Kara Danvers, mild-mannered reporter, manages to scale the hotel walls each day just to get a box of Dunkin’ donuts.”
Kara looks at Lena’s pale thighs and at the frosting on her fingers, and only then does she realize she’s still in her supersuit.
“You may want to hurry up and get changed,” Lena tells her, slanting her lashes up from Kara’s boots to her skirt to her family crest, sticking there. “You don’t want the judge to find you in contempt of court for wasting everybody’s time.”
-
Kara can’t apologize, because she hasn’t done anything wrong.
But Lena won’t allow her to explain.
-
“Hey, Lena. Look what I brought us.”
When Lena glances over at her, after having been unresponsive and withdrawn all day yesterday, Kara’s heart jumps with a tremulous, giddy sort of hope. She holds up a ziploc baggie filled with dry cereal and M&M’s, and gives Lena her most winning smile. “Trial mix.”
Lena’s eyes glide away without any kind of acknowledgement.
-
“She’s going to murder you in your sleep,” Alex tells her, and Kara’s only just broached the topic of their friendship, the unlocked doors between their adjoining rooms. “Did you never watch Gone Girl?” Alex asks. “Rich white women are fucking terrifying.”
-
Lena walks through Kara’s door without knocking three nights later, still dressed in her courtroom attire. Kara has already stripped down to her tank top, one leg in and one leg out of the bottoms of her duckie pajamas. When she takes in Lena’s posture she goes completely still, pajama bottoms half around her ankle and one leg still aloft.
Lena’s arms are crossed over her chest, and she’s tilting her jaw in a way that makes Kara feel like she’s being looked down on, even though Lena is at least three inches shorter than herself. The domineering picture she strikes makes the blood in Kara’s body rush south so fast the pressure in her sinuses clears.
Kara asks, “Are you here to yell at me?”
Lena scoffs. “Is that what you think I want?” she asks. “To make an enemy out of you?”
“No,” Kara says, pulling up her pants with a huff. ”I want us to be—” Her voice falters, her throat completely dry. “Lena, please,” she starts over. “You need to give me an opportunity to explain.”
Lena averts her eyes with such tangible disdain Kara folds her arms around herself in an instinctive protective gesture. A gesture that perfectly mirrors Lena’s own, she realizes.
“Don’t tell me what I need,” Lena says.
Kara decides to yield, to listen. “Then why don’t you tell me?”
Lena’s fingers tighten around her own arm, digging into the soft flesh so hard Kara is certain it will leave a bruise. “God,” Lena says, exhaling hard before telling Kara’s ceiling, “Three fingers would be a good start.”
Kara chokes, knocked so entirely off-balance that she has to catch herself, one foot hitting the floor with such force they both hear the concrete crack.
Lena fixes her with a look of intense annoyance and clarifies, “Of Scotch.”
Kara squirms beneath her gaze. “Maybe we could ask Yvette—”
“The bailiff? Lena cuts her off sharply. “Why bother?” Only one corner of her mouth curls up in a taunting smirk. “Can’t you just—” her eyes flick to the windows, to Kara’s open balcony door.
Kara swallows. “Of course. If you want, I would. I’ll do anything.”
The hard muscle at the hinge of Lena’s jaw flexes.
“Anything?”
-
Lena tells Kara she’s only allowed to watch—no touching. It feels like a punishment, but Kara takes it readily.
She makes Kara lie back on the bed again, naked this time, and straddles her waist instead of her chest. She’s already messy-wet when she first sinks down onto Kara’s thigh, her breath stuttering out of her in a series of gasps as she adjusts.
When Lena’s eyes lock with her own, Kara's fingers flex restlessly, useless, around the board behind her head.
It’s torture. It’s evil. It’s entirely unfair.
It’s worse than the time Alex gifted Eliza one of those silicone spatulas that lick the bowl for you, denying Kara her usual sweet reward.
It’s exquisite.
Lena’s body is shining like a pearl in the light of the moon, her soft belly twitching in time with the movement of her hips. Kara groans as Lena starts up an achingly slow rhythm, drawing it out, as if she’s teasing herself. Kara is awe-struck, watching her; aroused almost to the point of pain, feeling Lena grind herself into the muscle of her thigh, gliding silky and slick against Kara’s overheated skin.
Lena finishes herself off that way, biting her lip to keep quiet, nostrils flaring. Her fingers claw at Kara’s invulnerable flesh, while Kara keeps her own wrapped obediently around the bed frame.
And then she tells Kara to turn her over and fuck her into the bed until she cries.
Turns out three fingers are exactly what Lena Luthor needs.
-
Lena feels fragile in her arms, after. She traces patterns onto the bare skin of Kara’s breasts, firm strokes and tickling swirls, and it takes Kara an embarrassingly long time to realize she’s drawing the emblem of the House of El over her chest.
Lena says, “I thought we were all prisoners here, in our stagnant little bubble. But you’re still out there every night, eating your favorite foods, seeing your favorite people.”
“I could take you,” Kara offers, her arms tightening around her at the thought. “Out there, I mean. Wherever you want to go.”
But Lena shakes her head. She takes her civic duty seriously. They’ve broken enough rules as is.
-
Talking to her sister turns out to be the solution to every single one of Kara’s problems. Even if it means Kara will maybe, probably, go to jail.
Can they really call it misconduct, she asks herself, if it means an innocent man walks free?
And he is innocent, fortunately. Alex succeeds in proving as much, with some help from Detective Sawyer.
About the other thing, her sister yells and stomps and curses for a while, but she eventually calms down. “I guess it’s your funeral,” she decides. She sneers, “Lena fucking Luthor.”
Kara bites her lip. “More like fucking—”
“Don’t.”
-
“I’m afraid to ask,” Lena tells her, when they hear the charges have been dropped.
“Then you probably know the answer,” Kara says.
It’s weird, the freedom, after all those weeks. Descending the courthouse steps without Yvette escorting them feels like stepping out of a movie theater in the middle of the afternoon. Kara blinks up into the sun and feels strangely untethered.
Lena stands there, the line of her shoulder cool, her gaze distant as it sweeps the parking lot. She looks like the Lena Luthor Kara had met with Clark, Kara realizes, and it makes her panic for a brief, bright flash of a moment.
Once upon a time they were strangers. There’s a universe full of ways in which Kara Danvers could very reasonably never have met Lena Luthor at all. And there may very well be a time still ahead, where they’re amicable but aloof, only ever crossing paths professionally. Not as friends. Not as lovers.
Not as anything.
“Do you want to come over to my place?” Kara blurts it, helpless, hopeful.
Lena’s eyebrows swoop as if she’s confused, but her smirk is anything but indecisive. “Are you propositioning me, Ms Danvers?”
Kara blows out a breath. “Alex is actually throwing me a welcome home surprise party,” she says. “So us getting busy would probably not go over well.”
Lena looks at her. Kara wants to know what she is thinking. “Don’t tell me,” she says. “You hate surprise parties.”
Lena lets out a tiny laugh.
“You hate sisters?”
Lena shakes her head.
“Good. Because she may need a little time to warm up to you. Come on.” Kara grabs her hand before Lena can change her mind, directing her into a nearby alley.
“What are you—”
Kara cuts her off by kissing her. It’s hot and messy, right from the start, with everything that’s happened behind it, everything Kara still hopes so much has yet to happen.
Lena meets it with equal fervor, because she’s perfect. They’re perfect.
It’s perfect.
“Hey Kara,” Lena says, and Kara’s already thrilled, already laughing against her lips. “What did Supergirl say,” Lena continues, “when Lena Luthor asked her to give her a ride?”
Kara blushes at the memory. She knows, if Lena were to ask her again, right here, her answer would be the same.
“I don’t know,” she lies, sacrificing the truth for the punchline, as always.
“I don’t either,” Lena says, one eyebrow raised. “It’s still up in the air.”
“Oh,” Kara says. “That’s—”
She owes her sister an Intense Orange Dark Chocolate Excellence bar. Because Kara Danvers loves almost nothing more than she loves a good pun, so finding out Lena Luthor’s are terrible? That absolutely kills her.
“That’s actually really bad,” Kara tells Lena’s trademark smirk. “I did not see that coming.”
Lena giggles, and then they’re kissing again, so, you know.
Kara’s pretty sure she’s forgiven.